


remedial homecomings: studies in nostoi and reunions

by erce3



Series: but i love you more than words can say [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Season/Series 06, Slow Burn, They/Them Pronouns for Dean Craig Pelton, dean craig pelton/jeff winger if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erce3/pseuds/erce3
Summary: A few years ago, right before Troy left, he might have said their relationship was best broken into two parts: hijinks and understanding. In his analytical way, he might have gone into how their hijinks stood out because they had heart; it was the emotion behind their shenanigans that motivated Greendale to large-scale craziness, like blanket forts. Or maybe it was the other way around: the large-scale absurdity that was Greendale inspired their hijinks, which were fundamentally with heart because Greendale had heart.*or, troy comes back to greendale & abed is forced to reconcile how he feels about him
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Series: but i love you more than words can say [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810150
Comments: 36
Kudos: 267





	remedial homecomings: studies in nostoi and reunions

**Nostos** ([Ancient Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek): νόστος) is a theme used in [Ancient Greek literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_literature) which includes an epic hero returning home by sea. [[x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostos)]

When Troy Barnes comes back to Greendale—ragged, tired, but _rich_ —he does so under the guys of visiting the Air Conditioning Repair School. (Once, Jeff told him it was actually _guise,_ which is ridiculous; it’s a metaphor, Troy had patiently explained, because you’re hiding under a bunch of guys).

Regardless, he goes to the Air Conditioning Repair School and announces the One True Repairman is back even though they already know that, and then he goes to see how the actual Greendale is doing, because—if he’s being honest—he has really, really missed it.

It’s a little lame, though; the study group isn’t together anymore, apparently, which he should have guessed but didn’t want to think about. At least Jeff and the Dean both make an entrance when he shows up. Or. The Dean makes an entrance, and Jeff follows behind, complaining and snarking as Troy stands in the study room, where _other students_ are studying. It’s kind of weird, if Troy is being honest.

He’s also kind of pleased, though, that the Dean still has that spidey sense for turning up when any member of the study group thinks a little too hard about them. Or thinks a little bit too hard about how well their day is going. Or thinks. Or breathes. Maybe the Dean just has a Greendale Seven spidey sense, if Troy’s really thinking about it.

Either way, Jeff says something that Troy doesn’t catch but assumes is mean and kind of funny.

“Thank you, Jeffery,” Dean Pelton responds sarcastically, turning to look at Jeff with a disapproving glare. They’re not in costume. Troy isn’t sure if he’s happy about that or not. “I’m sure Troy feels so welcomed with your running commentary.” 

Jeff behind him rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s a zinger, Craig. I will totally stop now.”

Troy furrows his brow. _Craig?_ Something itches in the back of his brain. 

“You’re a professor now, you know,” responds the Dean, wheeling around to face Jeff entirely. It’s a little like they’ve totally forgotten Troy. “It’s not as suave when you insult our school.”

Jeff opens his mouth to retort with something super clever that Troy _knows_ will go over his head, but he’s interrupted by Troy’s exclamation of “You’re a _professor_?!” (Which, to be fair, he doesn’t mean to say. He’s just surprised, is all, and sometimes his emotions can be a little hard to contain.)

Both men turn to look at him with identical expressions of surprise; they _had_ forgotten he was there. Troy frowns.

“Yes, Troy,” says Jeff sarcastically, and then pauses. His expression shudders for a moment, somewhere close to defeat, but in the old, familiar way Troy recognizes: this is the expression Jeff makes every time he realizes, _damn it, I love this school and the people in it and so I do have to make the effort to save the day, again,_ an expression which always makes Troy wonder why _he’s_ considered the dumb one. Jeff has that revelation at _least_ once a day.

(Or, he did, before Troy went away. Troy files that thought away almost as quickly as he thinks it.)

“Yes, Troy,” says Dean Pelton, in a much softer way. “Jeffery decided to take the leap and become a professor over a teacher. And, you know,” they add in a low voice with a hand to their mouth, like they’re telling a secret, “he defends the school in lawsuits from time to time.”

(“It pays better,” grumbles Jeff unconvincingly. Everyone knows that Jeff secretly just really likes Greendale.)

Troy stands there a little awkwardly, sitting in the new revelation that Jeff is still at Greendale. “Huh,” he says intelligently. And then, “if Jeff still works here, where’s Abed?” He doesn’t explain this line of reasoning; it’s obvious that if Greendale hasn’t outgrown Jeff, then Abed hasn’t outgrown Greendale. Abed _was_ Greendale. It’s what made Greendale magic. There’s no reason to stay otherwise. “I think he got a new number. He’s not answering his phone.”

There’s another long silence.

“So,” continues Dean Pelton, making weird hand motions that Troy has _never_ been able to interpret as Jeff manages to look both embarrassed and incredibly fond of his place of work, “this is awkward. But we, uh. We thought you were dead.”

Annie calls Abed about thirteen minutes into the episode of Inspector Spacetime he’s watching. On his lap is a script, loosely replicating the classic Inspector Spacetime episode model for an homage episode of his show. “It’s important,” Annie says insistently, when he responds to tell her he’s busy, leaving Inspector Spacetime playing in the background, if only for the comforting hum of the familiar dialogue and noises.

“Troy’s back.”

“I know,” says Abed, after a while. “I’ve been tracking the Air Conditioning Repair School.” 

“Are you going to be okay?”

He pauses to consider. “Yeah,” he says, though his own voice sounds weird, like he’s doing a character from a TV show and not himself. “I’m not as fragile as you guys think I am,” and when she—predictably—makes an offended noise over the line and begins to refute him, he adds, “It’ll be good to reunite the study group. I think Jeff really needs it. Are you still planning to visit in a couple weeks? I haven’t checked on finding a place to rent.” 

There’s a long pause on the end of the line. “Abed, you’re acting _weird._ Like, creepy weird and not cute weird.”

He frowns. He opens his mouth, and belatedly realizes he’s switched into Normal Person Abed, who really is just Abed from Troy and Abed in the Morning, which makes his stomach curl weirdly. “Huh,” he says, trying to access his regular self, but it still sounds too happy and fake and full of emotion. Like if he were maybe Rick realizing something, not Abed realizing something.

She doesn’t say anything to that.

Word travels fast. Troy imagines it the way Abed would have, three or so years ago: a montage set to upbeat music. Jeff and Dean Pelton, who insists that Troy call them Craig, which is _weird,_ take Troy to the bar where Britta works as she’s getting her master’s. She looks confused, then brightens, then her expression goes through a weird face journey that Troy, if it had been three and a half years ago, might have had a chance at following.

Now, though?

  
  
He has no luck.

Jeff sees it, though; he swoops in and guides Britta one way as Dean Pelton— _Dean Pelton,_ it’s so weird that they’re in the group—guides Troy the other way, asking questions about his journey. Namely, the pirates.

Everyone wants to know about the pirates. He rolls his eyes.

Either way, this begins the montage: Britta calls Shirley, who apparently moved away and then moved back because the high schools are better here and housing is more affordable, or something. Troy doesn’t really follow this. Shirley calls Annie on her way to the bar, because of course Shirley wants to see Troy again, especially since everyone apparently thought Troy and LeVar were dead.

It’s a lot to process.

Annie panics and probably calls Abed. Or maybe they all silently agree that Annie’s the only one who can appropriately break the news to Abed. Troy’s not sure. No one bothers to put him into the loop. It feels like he’s a stranger, suddenly, which makes him annoyed and upset and uncomfortable.

Especially because Troy doesn’t know what Abed does; he can imagine a thousand different reactions, but no one says anything, so he doesn’t know for sure. He imagines Abed’s quiet “Cool. Cool cool cool” and a scene where he says “I know” and a scene where he begins to whine in that high-pitched way and a scene where he just hangs up without saying anything.

No one tells Troy what actually happens, though, because they’re too busy making him drinks and quietly making comments at one another instead of _telling him what’s going on._

Also, Chang is there. And this woman called Frankie, who Dean Pelton patiently explains they hired to help save Greendale.

Troy asks how long it took for her and Jeff to hook up, and they all laugh like it’s a great joke, and no one explains why it’s so funny.

(This, he realizes with a pang, was Abed’s role. Abed was always really good at figuring out when Troy was confused, or when Troy was misinterpreting, or when Troy was feeling stupid. He misses Abed, he realizes, or rather—remembers. He’s missed Abed ever since he got on that boat).

After a while, Britta asks him if he needs a place to stay. Jeff asks him if he needs help getting Pierce’s money. Shirley asks him if he’s planning to leave again anytime soon. “No,” he says, to all three questions, and nothing else. He sips his drink; Jeff got him a beer without asking, and it’s kind of gross.

This causes Britta to pull him aside a little later, when Jeff and Dean Pelton are in an argument about the best use of funds, which Frankie is trying to mediate and failing, and patiently says, “I know things have changed a lot since you left,” in what Troy remembers as her therapist voice.

It’s been a while, but it’d take a lot for him to forget Britta’s therapist voice. It’s no less subtle than the first time he heard it.

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “I guess I should have guessed.”

“It’s okay to feel sad,” she says, and places a hand on his shoulder. He looks down at it with detachment.

“I’m not sad,” he says, trying to be equally as patient.

“You’re not?” He opens his mouth to respond, but she holds up her hands. “Oh, of course. You’re just processing your trauma. Being kidnapped by pirates must have been terrifying.” Her face is making the same face Troy makes when he thinks too hard about baby seals. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. I completely understand.” Her hand goes back to his shoulder. “But we can get through this together.”

“It’s his first night back. Give him a break, Britta,” Jeff says behind them, startling the two of them. “You’re not a therapist yet.”

Troy untangles himself from her hand and stands up. “You’re getting better, though,” he says as nicely as he can manage.

“He needs time to heal,” replies Britta, ignoring Troy. It sounds so familiar that it’s making his brain wrinkle.

“Well, give him some time, then,” retorts Jeff.

“Well _you_ give _him_ some time.”

“That’s not even a good response! It barely makes sense,” cries Jeff, right as it suddenly hits Troy and explodes out of him.

“You’re boning Dean Pelton?!” says Troy suddenly, aghast. He turns to Jeff and then sheepishly adds, “not like I have a problem with it. It’s just. Dean Pelton? Really?” 

  
“What?” says Jeff.

“ _What_?” says Britta. “Jeff, you didn’t tell me—”

“That’s because I’m not ‘boning’ Dean Pelton. Troy, what on earth would make you think that?” Jeff towers over him, looking both concerned and surprised and—something else, and Troy has to search his memory rapidly, trying to place that expression. He’s not really good at that kind of thing, though; he’s always been better with following his gut than recalling evidence.

“You bicker with them the way you used to with Britta.”

“No I _don’t_ ,” says Jeff, right as Britta goes, “oh my _God,_ you’re right,” and then looks right at Dean Pelton, as if trying to gauge the situation.

“Don’t do that,” says Jeff, swatting in front of Britta’s vision in an attempt to distract her. “We’re _not_ hooking up. It’s just weird because we’re friends now, that’s all. You just missed the introduction of their boyfriend about half a year ago.” He rounds on Britta, seemingly not guilty by bringing up Troy’s absence. “I understand _him_ not knowing, but you? How did you forget?”

Britta frowns. “I don’t remember meeting their boyfriend.”

Jeff opens his mouth for another retort, which will have no bite to it, because Troy can tell he isn’t boning and does not want to bone Britta. It’s somewhat of a relief and annoying all at the same time, because everything is the _same_ and _different_ and no one is narrating in his ear to explain all the changes.

“I don’t care, actually,” says Troy finally, a little grumpy and lost. “I just. Where’s Abed?”

After the phone call, Abed pulls up his old movies about the study group, the ones which earned him the label of a prophet for a short amount of time. He’s blank-faced as he watches them, imagining giving an interview and trying to explain the relevancy of them, their inspiration. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said most of these things happened in real life,” he would say, and the laugh-track in his mind would echo the interviewer’s own chuckle.

He imagines the interviewer leaning a little too close, trying to foster a sense of security between them. “Tell me about your relationship with Troy,” the interviewer would say, and Abed would pause and think.

Maybe he’d respond with half a dozen pop-culture references, trying to place a relationship as unique as theirs. Maybe he’d respond by shrugging, smiling in an enigmatic way. Maybe he’d just say, “We were best friends,” and leave it at that. It’s hard to know; Abed hasn’t properly talked about Troy in a long time. 

A few years ago, right before Troy left, he might have said their relationship was best broken into two parts: hijinks and understanding. In his analytical way, he might have gone into how their hijinks stood out because they had heart; it was the emotion behind their shenanigans that motivated Greendale to large-scale craziness, like blanket forts. Or maybe it was the other way around: the large-scale absurdity that was Greendale inspired their hijinks, which were fundamentally with heart because Greendale had heart. 

His phone buzzes: he has three texts from Annie, two from Jeff, eight from Britta, one from Shirely, and one from Troy.

The one from Troy reads, _did u kno theres a KICKPUNCHER VIDEO GAME COMING OUT?_

Another chime, where Troy quickly follows up: _what am i saying of course u kno_

Abed blinks down at it, and suddenly is overcome with emotion. He wipes at his eyes and puts his phone away.

As it turns out: Abed lives in Los Angeles. He’s not big enough yet for any romance he may or may not be having to appear in one of the paparazzi magazines that Shirley reads sometimes at her dentist’s. Dean Pelton says his TV show is very good, and that they watch it with Jeff. Jeff says sometimes he calls because he’s lonely (which Troy interprets as Abed calls because he knows Jeff misses him and says it’s because he’s lonely to preserve Jeff’s pride). He visits sometimes over Christmas, where he rents an AirBnB with Annie, despite the fact neither of them celebrate Christmas.

Troy nods and pretends like all this new information is totally a-okay, even though he feels a little like there’s water slowly rising in the room and he hasn’t figured out a way out yet. He’s missed a lot, as it turns out. He takes a deep breath and says, “So where’s Annie?” and tries to slip into that everything-is-fine Troy clone who is more able to deal with overwhelming stuff like this.

(Annie, he finds out, has been working in DC, but _might_ come back to Colorado to run for mayor in the next couple of years. Or she might stay working for the FBI. Or she might become a journalist. No one really knows, but they each have a theory. Troy doesn’t have anything to say to this, except that he’s surprised she’s not mayor already and that he misses her.

Everyone nods in agreement. They’re still speaking gently, as if the news of Abed leaving might still cause a breakdown yet.)

  
Abed gets unasked for updates on Troy from Annie and Jeff and Shirley and Britta and, weirdly enough, Dean Pelton. Apparently Troy spends the next couple of weeks taking jobs from the Air Conditioning Repair School, and helping Jeff (and the Dean!) in resolving random Greendale schemes, and skyping Annie, and visiting Britta at the bar, and fixing Shirley’s leaky sinks and bad air conditioning, and texting Abed, to which Abed doesn’t respond. Apparently no one else is having any problems with Troy suddenly being back.

One week while he’s FaceTiming Jeff, in part to tell him about his plan with Annie to visit Greendale in July, Jeff admits Troy might move in with him and Britta. (Jeff and Britta have been living together for a while now, because Britta’s master’s is expensive, and Greendale doesn’t pay Jeff enough). He says he’s helping Troy figure out a budget with Annie, and that Dean Pelton even offered Troy a job for the next semester.

Abed blinks, and hangs up without warning. He’s not even sure why he does it, just that suddenly he’s so angry he can’t help himself. It’s not even play-anger, the way he acts when he’s Bad Cop to someone’s Good Cop, or pretending to be a character from a movie. It surprises him that he’s so angry.

Abed and Annie land at around the same time; Annie always coordinates their tickets for Thanksgiving, Jeff explains as he drives with Troy to the airport to pick them up. “She says it’s because they like to have lunch together at a specific place in the terminal, but it’s more likely she’s afraid I’ll flake out of driving to pick them up a second time.” He says this like it’s ridiculous.

Troy makes a noncommittal noise that roughly translates to, _yeah, that’s a fair assumption._

“What?” cries Jeff, offended. “I’d never do that!”

“Eh,” says Troy, and then seeing Jeff’s face fall, adds, “Well, it has been a while?” to make him feel better, but can’t quite commit to the excuse, because he _has_ been staying with Jeff for the past couple of weeks.

They sit in uncomfortable silence for a minute anyway, until Jeff says, “Oh, look, here they come,” and points over Troy’s chest and towards his right.

Troy swivels and cranes his neck to look for them. He finds Abed first, since his head is a couple inches above everyone else’s; Abed’s looking around too, with that familiar calculating look, probably for Jeff’s car. The sight of him catches Troy by surprise—Abed’s hair is a little long, curling at the nape of his neck; he’s in one of those high-neck slouchy sweaters with the three quarters zip, which makes him look fancier and older and more respectable. Abed reaches up to scratch his nose, and Troy’s suddenly paralyzed by how Abed looks the same and also, not? 

Abed looks—older, for one thing. More like he lives in LA and produces movies and TV shows. But he also looks a little uncomfortable as he turns his head to speak to Annie, who’s partially hidden by the crowd; he looks a little out of place.

At this moment, Jeff catches sight of them, and honks his horn, startling Troy and Abed both. Abed’s head turns toward the noise, and his gaze passes over the car once, twice, before it catches on Troy and snags. He stops moving, even though Troy can see finally Annie pulling on his sleeve and trying to move him forward as the crowd disperses around them.

(Annie looks different, too; she’s in comfortable-and-practical-yet-sharp-and-sophisticated cardigan and jeans. She looks more relaxed, somehow, and more sure of herself; when her eyes land on Troy in the passenger seat, she squeals and starts tugging harder).

Troy finds himself lifting a hand in greeting, then feels weird about it, and lowers it.

Abed doesn’t move. Annie tugs harder. 

Jeff, beside him, claps a hand on Troy’s shoulder. “Well,” he says matter-of-factly, “this is awkward.”

Troy doesn’t say anything; he watches a whispered conversation between Annie and Abed, where Annie is insistent and frustrated, and Abed’s face is schooled into the most detached Troy’s seen it.

Either way, Annie wins, and Abed follows reluctantly behind her. Jeff and Troy get out of the car to help put luggage in the trunk. As Troy slams the car door shut, Annie squeals again and bounces up and down behind him, then pulls him into a huge hug. “Oh, Troy!” she says happily. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Troy catches sight of Abed discussing something with Jeff over Annie’s shoulder, and pulls her back. “Yeah,” he says distractedly as he watches them begin to put Annie’s suitcase in the back, “it’s been a while.”

Annie looks between Troy and Abed a couple of times, and then shakes him. “Okay,” she says, “I know it’s a little weird right now, but we just need to give Abed some time. And in the meantime, we can catch up! I mean, everyone said you haven’t explained the pirates yet, and I wanted to know about how LeVar is doing—”

At this, Jeff taps her and she gasps. “What, no hug, kiddo?” he says, and gets a pout from Annie.

“Don’t call me kiddo, Skiddo,” she responds, and then, at Jeff’s confused expression she explains, “I know it’s not a name, but Abed’s been showing me some Pokémon! I didn’t think he was into that kind of stuff, but,” and here she shrugs in her _well, Abed is Abed and that means unpredictable sometimes_ sort of way that annoys Troy.

Either way, Jeff starts prodding her for an update about her new job (which she’s really not supposed to talk about, Jeff, seriously) and Troy catches Abed’s gaze again.

“Do you need help?” he says, as Abed picks up his own suitcase.

“No.” Abed doesn’t even look up.

“Right. Well, you were always a better athlete than I was,” offers Troy.

Abed doesn’t respond to that. With some effort, he picks up the suitcase and tries to fit it next to Annie’s, but it’s just a little bit too large. He frowns, sets down his suitcase, and fixes it with a dis-urning look (the origin of which word, Troy guesses, comes from Ancient Rome, where they used urns to hide things). He pauses and tries to move Annie’s suitcase, but it falls back into place the moment he goes to pick up his own.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t need my help?” Troy asks, moving towards the trunk of the car.

Abed’s hand flies out to stop him and Troy just barely misses colliding with Abed’s arm. “I’m sure,” Abed says flatly, and not in an Abed-flat way, but in an angry-flat way.

  
  
“O—kay,” says Troy, drawing out the word in that way to indicate _you’re being ridiculous,_ and crosses his arms. He’s mad now, too. Abed doesn’t get to be the only one who’s mad here.

Abed just frowns at him and tries to shove Annie’s suitcase more forcefully. It doesn’t work. In fact, it worsens the situation, because he shoves it so hard the suitcase falls out, and Troy says, “Careful! She might have something delicate in there,” to which Abed gives Troy another flat look.

“Fine. You do it.”

Troy frowns and sighs, then picks up the suitcase. He had to do this a bunch of times while they were sailing; both the fitting heavy things in weird places neatly, but also the more specific putting suitcases in trunks of things because every once in a while they wanted to stay in different hotel rooms and not in the same room on a boat. Either way, it takes him a minute or so to fit both by himself, and when he’s finished, he wipes his hands on his jeans and looks at Abed. “Fine,” he says. “Just for the record, I’m angry at you.”

“I know,” replies Abed. “You don’t have to belittle me.”

“I’m not—!” And then Annie comes up, and slings her arm around Troy and says, “So are you guys catching up?”

Abed gives her a Look. Troy shakes off her arm. “Whatever.”

“Look, I know things are complicated,” she waves her hand, “but I’d really like to catch up with Jeff, if that’s okay with you, Troy. Do you mind sitting in the back?”

Troy pauses and takes a moment to process the implications of that—are Annie and Jeff still doing their weird dance? Are they just really close friends? He sighs again and massages the bridge of his nose like people do in TV and says, “Yeah, that’s fine,” in a tone that he hopes indicates that it is Not Fine and his ex-best friend is being the _worst,_ actually, but Annie just bounces happily and claps her hands and thanks him.

So.

Troy and Abed are in the back of the car, not talking. Jeff and Annie are in the front, chattering happily. Troy tries to listen for a while, but gets bored; Jeff just talks a lot about the Dean and Annie talks a lot about her upcoming seminar in December at Greendale, and once they both accidentally mention Dungeons and Dragons before they awkwardly look at Troy, Jeff by checking the mirror and Annie by actually turning, and then laughing awkwardly and changing the subject.

Abed does not react to any of this.

Troy really wants to ask questions; he’s always been fairly good at catching social cues, but the problem with the people at Greendale (or the people who went to Greendale?) is that they’re so _weird_ that a lot of their social cues are explained by context that is almost impossible to guess.

So while Troy is good at catching social cues, he’s missing so much context from his trip sailing, that he’s extra-lost. He should have let the Air Conditioning Repair School people keep tabs on them, like they’d requested. Or, because they probably _had_ kept tabs on them, despite Troy’s many efforts for them to act like a _normal trade school,_ maybe Troy should have let them update him.

(Truthfully, he’d expected Abed to tell him what had happened.)

Every once in a while, he catches Abed studying him and tries to say something, but Abed goes back to looking out the window. He racks his brain for movie scenes that involve staring out of a car window, and comes up with too many to guess which one Abed’s probably reenacting, so he sits in silence and drums his hands against his knees.

After a long, _boring_ twenty minutes, Annie and Jeff wrap up their casual conversation about Greendale, full of quips Abed probably gets but Troy does not, they pull up a few blocks away from Greendale Community College, where Annie and Abed are renting an AirBnB. “We were so lucky to find something so close!” gushes Annie as Troy pulls her suitcase out of the car (watching Abed make an annoyed face as he does so), “I mean, we’ve had some _terrible_ luck in the past, right, Abed.”

Abed nods. “Once,” he says, more to Annie than to Troy, like he’s really indulging an imaginary viewer than informing Troy himself, “we thought our apartment was haunted, and _then_ we thought it was haunted by Chang, and _then_ we thought it was haunted by Annie’s Boobs, but it turned out the person who rented it to us was late on their electricity bill.”

Annie giggles, then frowns and turns to Troy. “It was more fun than it sounds.”

Troy nods. He knows what those kinds of adventures are like with Abed and the study group—he bets it was _awesome._ It makes him kinda sad, actually, to just hear about it. Regardless, he lifts Annie’s suitcase and follows her up the stairs, listening to her rattle on about past bad luck and how she’s _so_ glad you’re back, Troy, because once our air conditioning wasn’t working, and we almost all got heat stroke and hallucinated claymation, _again._

Things are a little awkward after that. Upon arriving at the apartment, the reunion of most of the study group feels a little like when they would reunite after breaks, if not a bit more overblown and in a very different space. With a pang, Troy recalls how much he misses his apartment with Abed and Annie, who spend a lot of the evening talking in hushed voices and glancing over to him.

He watches a lot of them argue as he dodges questions from the Dean about what the pirates wore and questions from Shirley about Abed being a robot, which he thinks isn’t very fair, but he’s mad at Abed now, so he can’t _defend_ him. Mostly, he dodges Britta trying to therapize him, because even though she’s better at it than she used to be, she’s still not very good.

Eventually, Jeff catches Troy watching and pulls him to the kitchen. “Annie and Abed arguing about something stupid,” he says, before even asking how Troy’s doing. “It’s ridiculous. I’ll just tell Abed to talk to you again.”

“He doesn’t like it when people tell him what to do,” Troy points out. “Annie said I should just wait.”

“Annie doesn’t know Abed like you know Abed.”

“Annie’s been talking to Abed and I haven’t.”

“Whatever. Listen, just don’t turn this into another pillow fight. I think you nearly gave Craig a hernia from the stress the first time.”

Troy raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you care about the Dean?”

“I don’t. I’m just saying, it was stressful and this apartment is too small for an all-out war.” 

Troy takes this as Jeff for ‘I care about you and your feelings and I hope you engage with it in a healthy way’ because Jeff is emotionally stunted and seems incapable of saying exactly that unless it’s necessary and it’s the main thesis of a Winger Speech™, which he is certainly not getting right now.

He smiles, and claps Jeff on the back. “Thanks,” he says, and decides to hover closer to listen to what Annie and Abed are talking about.

He finds them in the hallway to the bathroom. Annie’s looking at Abed like he’s delicate, like she’s afraid she might break his brain somehow. “Abed?” she prompts, as Troy inches down the hall. “Are you guys going to be okay? I know it’s been a while. I mean, we thought he was dead.”

Abed makes his calculating face. “I think the genre is switching,” he says eventually. “I thought we might have all spun off. But I think instead we may be entering a fix-it scenario.”

“A fix-it?” Annie asks, in a ‘Abed is very fragile but I’m also not following enough to make sure I don’t break him’ tone.

Abed’s expression shifts into an indulgent one. “Fix-it is a very common fanfiction trope,” he explains. “Where the author doesn’t like how things have ended, and decides to make narrative changes to better suit their own interests, or to better wrap up characters’ plotlines. Kind of like what is happening between Jeff and the Dean.”

Annie’s eyebrows wrinkle in confusion. “What do you mean, between Jeff and the Dean?”

“Well, the Dean is learning to balance their quirky nature without making Jeff uncomfortable, while Jeff is learning that the Dean is the constant fixture that Jeff needs.”

There’s a silence again, where Annie processes.

“So you’re okay. With Troy coming back?”

“Yup,” says Abed.

“O—kay,” says Annie disbelievingly. “Then why aren’t you talking to him?”

“I’m resisting the genre switch,” he replies matter-of-factly. “I think it’s working, actually, because we’re falling into a common sitcom trope right now.”

“What?”

Abed turns, and locks eyes with Troy. “I know you’re listening, and though I appreciate the homage to this particular trope, the problem is that I don’t think there’s anything in this conversation for you to misinterpret.” Annie’s eyes follow Abed’s and she makes an offended gasp. “Or anything particularly shocking revealed. Basically, in an attempt to create an homage, we’ve actually bungled the whole trope entirely.” He turns to Annie and snaps his fingers as if to punctuate his statement. “Besides, it’s just a cheap narrative trick to provide insight on other characters.”

“Whatever,” replies Troy, unable to come up with a clever response. “I’m mad at you, too, loser.”

Things get more unreasonable, because of course they do. Abed says Troy can’t play in their Dungeons and Dragons game. Shirley says that if Troy can’t play, neither will she. The Dean says wow, isn’t that a little harsh, everybody, to which Jeff tells them to shut up and agrees also not to play, at which point Britta follows suit and Annie looks incredibly conflicted.

“Troy called Abed a loser!” she exclaims. “You guys aren’t being fair!”

Abed knows, logically, that this argument is about him, but he can’t help but watch. Jeff starts saying that Abed _and_ Troy are both being immature, whereas Britta seems to be talking about Troy and Abed’s respective fragile mental states and something about men needing space to express their emotions, and Shirley is mostly on Troy’s side, where Annie is on Abed’s side, and the Dean is looking super distressed and Frankie looks like she’s out of her depth.

Troy stands there, too, and if Abed weren’t mad at him for reasons he barely understands himself, Abed would notice the way his hands have calluses, now, and how his hair is shorter, and how his wardrobe seems to have shifted to more colorful and somewhat less baggy, but Abed decides not to file away any of this information.

Eventually, Jeff shouts, “Enough!” and everyone’s suddenly silent.

Troy looks around at the group, shoves his hands in his pockets, and says, “Whatever,” and walks out.

About thirty minutes later—after what Troy assumes is a Classic Greendale Argument, fixed by a Classic Winger Speech, Abed finds him in the bathroom, where Troy is fixing the leaky sink if only for something to do with his hands. “I thought you weren’t going to be a plumber,” he says, startling Troy and causing him to turn with some surprise.

Troy stands and balances the wrench down on the sink, then wipes his hands. He shrugs. “I’m not sure what I’m going to be.” And then, “I’m sorry I called you a loser. I didn’t mean to cause the group to do—that.”

“You’re the one true repairman,” continues Abed, cocking his head. Troy’s always liked the way Abed says ‘one true repairman’ without the capital letter emphasis. “You’re supposed to repair man. Not this.” At Troy’s pause, he adds, “I did my research into the school after you left. I figured we had both lost something incredibly important to us, so I thought I might find some solidarity.”

“I’m still working on making them act like a regular school,” Troy mutters, suddenly embarrassed.

Abed shrugs. “Old habits die hard. Greendale is barely a regular school, despite how hard Frankie tries.”

“I don’t get why you came here to tell me that, though. You’re mad at me.”

Abed snaps his fingers in response. “Winger Speech,” he says, by way of explanation. “Also, because you apologized even though you’re mad at me. Also also, because not many people have the patience with me that you’ve had,” which causes Troy to wince and look away.

“You say that like you didn’t also say some pretty mean stuff to me.”

“That’s my point. Or rather, that was Jeff’s point, but because you weren’t there—which is unfortunate, because that means you didn’t play into the classic sitcom formula that we generally follow, where Jeff fixes most of our conflicts after a big argument—but because you weren’t there, I’m summarizing it now.”

That’s Abed for: _I don’t understand why you left, and it doesn’t fit any of the rules I have memorized._

“You did say we were having a genre switch,” says Troy. “I thought you didn’t like that.”

“I don’t. I don’t like fix-it fanfiction, mostly because it requires that everyone be happy at the end, and everyone here is happy, and I’m not. I’m angry, and I don’t want to be, but I am. Anyway, Jeff’s point was that you’ve always known how to best hurt me _because_ you care about me, which I think he assumed I was upset about. He did also say you get me better than anybody, and evidence for that lies in our arguments, and so I should really think about letting a friend as good as you go.” A pause, where Abed tilts his head again in that particular way which means that he’s thinking about what he’s saying. “I guess he was right. It’s just—and no offense, Troy, but you left. And even if you sent postcards and occasionally emails, you still left.”

“I came back.”

“No, _I_ made sure you came back.”

“Abed, you didn’t actually clone me,” says Troy, if only because he’s angry again and he knows that Abed will be upset by that. “And it’s not _fair_ you get to be angry at _me_ for leaving. You left, too!”

“I’m not talking about cloning,” says Abed. “And I left after you left.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I know you don’t. But that’s the thing, right? I made sure you came back and you didn’t even notice. That’s how unimportant I have become to you.”

Troy closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. “You’re talking about the pirates.”

“So you do know that I sent the Air Conditioning Repair School to save you.” Abed’s face gets exaggerated, like he’s doing a character from a movie or mimicking a specific facial expression from a sitcom, “And _everybody_ was mad that I was tracking them!” His face snaps back to normal, and his voice gets quiet when he adds, “But I saved you.”

“Yeah, I know. The Air Conditioning Repair School told me.” Troy frowns. “They also wanted LeVar to sign a really weird thing until I told them to stop because of it, and they asked me if I wanted updates on how you guys were doing.”

Abed frowns. “So that’s why I’ve noticed them lurking more than before you left.”

“Yeah. Except I told them I didn’t, because that was your job. Except now I’m back, and everyone’s done a bunch of things I don’t understand, and they have relationships I don’t get, and I’m so _confused_.” At around the middle of this, his voice gets high pitched and stressed, to which Abed’s expression turns a little softer at the edges.

(Abed, Troy knows, doesn’t do expressions like anyone else. That’s why so many people think he’s robotic, even though he has more emotion than most of them; Troy’s always found Abed’s facial expressions and body language comforting, like the way he assumes someone might about a language they speak but haven’t heard spoken in a long time, or the way it feels to fix something with a little wrench and some sticky stuff and elbow grease.)

“I thought you didn’t need me.”

“It’s not about needing, Abed. And obviously I did, because you saved me and LeVar Burton from pirates.”

“Technically,” says Abed, “That was the Air Conditioning Repair School.”

“But I left because I was just your sidekick!” His voice is getting high pitched again; distantly, Troy recognizes he’s shouting. He hopes Abed knows what he means, that he felt like less and less he’d been able to contribute anything unique to their relationship, except for familiarity, and that things had been confusing and difficult and he’d just _needed to,_ and he couldn’t explain why and that’s why he left, because he wanted to figure out that need.

“I don’t understand.” Abed’s voice is still the same volume. It sounds quiet in comparison. “You have a cult. You aren’t anyone’s sidekick.”

“You hate my cult,” says Troy, mostly to be petty.

“It felt like they always won,” Abed replies. “I always ended up losing you to them.”

“I always came back.”

Abed shrugs. “I didn’t think you were going to. The Air Conditioning Repair School was pretty serious about not letting you come back. We kind of have a running animosity at this point between us. I think we were mostly just competing for your attention while you were on the boat, and they won.”

“But I’m here, now,” Troy says, suddenly exasperated. “And I have enough money that we can rent celebrity impersonators all you want without people breaking your legs, and I have a job because of the Air Conditioning Repair School even though I have no idea how to make them stop being a cult, and I know way more things now than before, and I was _so excited_ to see you again because I missed you so much and you’re still mad at me! And you’re wrong about fix-it fics!”

“What?”

“It doesn’t have to be a fix-it fic! You can choose what kind of closure you want! We can still do sitcom things if you want.” He’s crying now; Abed looks startled at the sudden explosion regarding closure and choice, but Troy doesn’t care.

“I don’t need closure,” Abed says calmly.

Sometimes arguing with Abed reminds Troy of how everyone else around them always tells Abed that they’re not in a TV show, or in a movie, or in a fanfiction. He certainly feels the compulsion to do it right now, even though Abed _knows._ He takes a deep breath and swipes at his eyes. 

“It just makes me mad,” says Troy, trying to communicate calmly the way LeVar once told him to do, since two people on a boat with nothing else to do for long stretches of time really have to communicate, or else, “that you can’t be happy that I got to do something super awesome. That you feel like you have to fight the Air Conditioning Repair School for me. That you had to code me for a ‘compulsion’ to come back. Why can’t I just choose to come back? Why didn’t you trust me to come back?”

Abed looks at him for a long time. “I don’t know,” he says finally, and walks out, shutting the bathroom door behind him.

Abed walks straight into Annie. “You’ve been listening,” he says, matter of fact, and her mouth opens to apologize, and her eyes get wide in that doe-eyed Disney way that makes even Abed feel something. He shakes his head to try and dispel the power of it; it doesn’t work.

“Abed—”

“I told you it’s my least favorite sitcom trope,” he adds, disappointed.

“Jeff and Shirley told me to do it,” she says, really fast, which causes some voices down the hall to exclaim out in unison. 

Abed blinks. “You all wanted to know what we were saying?”

She nods. “You don’t have to tell us, though.”  
  


More voices from down the hall, probably annoyed. Abed’s not the best at figuring these things out, but from context it makes sense, and with the way Annie’s expression screws up like she knows people are disappointed in her. Abed shrugs. “He’s angry with me,” he says tonelessly, and frowns. “I think I’m still angry with him.”

“So you haven’t made up?”

“No.” Abed pauses. “But maybe we shouldn’t tell Jeff that. It could be a blow to his ego.”

“Abed, I can hear you,” says Jeff down the hall, so maybe that’s not such a good plan in the first place. Abed shrugs at Annie, who shrugs back at him.

Interestingly, Frankie’s the one that finds him after that. Troy sits back on the toilet seat and wishes he had a candy cigarette, or even a toilet olive to pretend to enjoy. Instead, Frankie opens the door and when he says, “Occupied,” she just makes a face that roughly translates to _I’m too distinguished to say duh-doy, but I’m thinking it._

“I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“Oh,” he says, looking out the window somewhat dramatically. “Come to tell me I hurt Abed’s feelings?”

“No,” she says, and he looks up, surprised. “Look, your—our—friends are ridiculous. That’s in their nature. They’re being ridiculous right now about you coming back. But we never met before, so I don’t actually hold much stake in this argument.” She waves her hand dismissively.

“So you don’t think I’m going to replace you?”

She shakes her head, and then motions to the edge of the bathtub. “Anyone sitting here?”

Troy fixes her with a look. “It’s a bathtub.”

“I know that. It’s just polite.” She massages the bridge of her nose. “Look what Greendale’s made me,” she mutters under her breath. “Equally ridiculous.” And in a louder voice, “Anyway,” then she sits on the edge of the bathtub facing Troy, giving him an equally dry look. “Listen, Troy, they don’t remember how sad everyone was when you left, but I do. I remember because they talked about you without talking about you for months. Abed always seemed like he was missing something, or someone. Of course he’s mad. Of course they’re overjoyed you’re back. To a lot of them, you represent their happiest years. I recognize that; I came to Greendale to help fix it and was welcomed by a community. You came to Greendale and helped found a community. I can’t replace you, and vice versa. The stability I offer is completely different.”

“Huh.” Troy checks his pockets again, just in case, for a candy cigarette. He doesn’t find anything. “So why are you talking to me now?”

“Because they’re being ridiculous.” She sighs again. People have been sighing a lot recently. “I understand Abed’s upset right now, but I think he needs to just spend some more time with you.”

“He’s mad because the Air Conditioning Repair School saved me from pirates,” says Troy, in part to clue her into the greater complexity of the situation. “Also, he doesn’t like being told what to do.”

“Wait. The annex to Greendale?”

Troy opens his mouth.

“You know what, nevermind,” Frankie says as quickly as she can. “I don’t want to know.”

“I’m trying to make them act like a normal school,” offers Troy. “It’s not really working.”

“Right. Of course.” She massages her temples. “The Dean told me not to worry about them. I don’t know why I trusted them?”

Troy shrugs. “Thanks for the advice, though. Or not-advice. I don’t really know what you gave me? It wasn’t really that helpful, but I appreciated it.”

She looks at him curiously, then laughs. “Just talk to him, is what I’m saying. A little communication and effort goes a long way.” She frowns, and then says, “Either way, you should come out and rejoin the party. Your friends haven’t seen you in a while; they’ve missed you. And you know, Jeff suggested we rewatch some of Abed’s old documentaries tonight, since you’re back and now we’re more certain Abed won’t spiral when seeing them. I’ve never seen them.”

“You’ve _never seen them_? Man, Frankie, you’re going to be so upset when you see the one about the Dean’s commercials.”

Annie’s been making eyes at Jeff the way she usually does when she wants him to fix something, and Britta’s been carefully asking Abed if he’s okay, and Abed’s ignoring all three of them as he tries to connect his laptop to the TV and looks for the folder full of his old Greendale documentaries.

Shirley sits beside him as he sets it up. “I know you don’t want to talk about it,” she says in her ‘I’m very sweet and unassuming’ voice, “But I want you to know that I was angry at Andre for leaving, too.”

Abed says, “Can you read out the numbers on the TV screen?”

She recites them, pauses, and waits. When he doesn’t say anything else, she continues, “But I learned to forgive him, like a good Christian. And,” here her voice gets low and angry, “because he spent a lot of time apologizing and trying to do better.” Her voice gets high again. “But look where we are now,” she finishes, sing-song.

Abed doesn’t say anything, hoping Shirley won’t continue.

She opens her mouth to continue, and he sighs, holding up his hand to stop her. “The parallel between me and Troy and you and Andre isn’t logical,” he states. “Troy left to go on a boat with his hero, LeVar Burton, whereas Andre left you because he cheated on you with a stripper. Also, you aren’t together anymore. There aren’t any real similarities of substance between the two situations.”

“No,” she says, “but I know a thing or two about being angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

She gives him a look. “Sweetheart, I know anger when I see it. And you may be Muslim, but it’s good to forgive.”

He gives her a cool look back. “But you forgave Andre because you felt like you had to. I don’t feel that way about Troy.” 

“Okay, I know the parallel isn’t very good,” she says in that low, angry voice of hers, before taking a deep breath and continuing. “What I’m saying, Abed, is that I know anger very well. I was angry for a long time. After a while, it doesn’t do anything but hurt you. Maybe Troy will move on. Maybe he won’t. But you’ll be hurting yourself for a long time if you can’t find it in you to forgive him. Besides, you haven’t been the same since he left.”

  
  
Abed raises an eyebrow at that last part. “You’ve been talking to Britta.” It’s not a question, it’s a fact.

“We may have our differences, but we care about you, Abed. She’s worried you’ve been subdued since he left. At first she thought it was a side effect of pretending to be clone Abed, but we both know that it’s because you’re repressing your anger and loneliness.” She’s making the face she usually makes when she’s repressing saying something about God or Jesus, which always looks pained and uncomfortable to Abed, but she swallows and continues. “We want you to feel safe expressing yourself.”

“Are you all going to talk to me until I forgive Troy?” says Abed.

“No,” says Shirley quickly, but he doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t say that aloud, though.

“Thank you, Shirley,” he says, and makes the first film full screen.

True to Frankie’s words, they end up clustering around the television. There’s a brief argument as to whether or not to include the documentary on Changnesia. Abed, Jeff, Shirley, and Troy all think they should skip over the gas leak year entirely; Annie and Britta argue that Frankie deserves to be educated on Changnesia anyway.

In the end, Frankie herself says she can watch it on her own, which seems like a responsible compromise.

They start with the documentary with Pierce. It’s weird, seeing him again, if only on screen; it’s also weird to see LeVar before clone-Troy, and even weirder but a lot sadder to see Troy just being goofy on camera for his friend. Frankie spends most of the documentary horrified, which makes sense—Pierce was objectively a horrible dude.

“You really do have a talent,” says Frankie every once in a while, when Abed artfully cuts to emphasize the humor of the situation. “And so did this Pierce,” she adds distastefully.

“Yeah,” says Troy. “I don’t know why we were friends with him.”

“Mostly we felt bad for him,” replies Abed, making a small motion with his pointer finger to emphasize his point. “Also, though I’m not sure this is true anymore, I was worried we’d all turn on each other without a consistent villain.” He looks around at each of them, studying Troy for what feels like the longest. “But we’ve made it this far.”

There are murmurs of agreement, before Frankie says, “Seriously, what was wrong with you guys?”

“We’ve always been kind of toxic,” replies Troy, shrugging. There’s murmurs of agreement around him. “That’s why Pierce was so good at doing what he did. Didn’t you see the documentary?”

“Except for Troy and Abed,” Jeff points out.

Abed makes another noise. “I used to think that Troy leaving the group would cause the darkest timeline. At least, the simulations I ran in the Dreamatorium seemed to indicate that Troy leaving was the worst outcome, and Jeff the best.” He pauses. “Thinking about it now, I should have considered that Pierce leaving might have yielded a good outcome.”

“Yeah,” says Troy, remembering this theory, “but that was about leaving temporarily.”

“Aw, Abed,” says Annie, around the same time Shirley and Britta also make ‘aw’ noises. “You thought Troy leaving was the darkest timeline?”

“Yeah. I see now though that I was wrong.”

Troy frowns. “You seemed pretty convinced when you tried to saw off Jeff’s arm.”

“Okay, hold on, you did _what_?” says Frankie, while everyone makes agreeing noises. “What is wrong with you people?”

Annie shrugs. “Troy left for the Air Conditioning Repair School. Abed took it pretty hard.”

“That was before it functioned like a normal school and was a crazy cult,” explains Troy. “But then they realized I was their messiah after this one dude murdered the Vice Dean.” There’s a moment of silent reflection. “No, maybe you’re right. It was kind of a dark year. That was the year Chang was a dictator, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” says Annie, while Abed says, “Yup.”

Frankie makes a strangled noise.

He spends some time reflecting as he watches past-Troy talk to Abed about Firefly, before Pierce called in LeVar Burton and very nearly _ruined Troy’s life,_ but Troy tries not to think about it, since they spent a couple years sailing together. 

Either way, the documentary continues as Troy remembers: things get far, far worse. The study group mostly laughs at it while Frankie stares in horror. Shirley throws some popcorn at her past-self’s face, proclaiming she should have listened to the damn CD earlier; Troy cringes as past-Troy on the screen freezes up; Britta sighs and rambles on about psychology; Jeff just laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

“Why do you think he didn’t torture you, Abed?” Frankie says, while past-Jeff freaks out on-screen about the prospect of meeting his dead.

Abed tilts his head in that calculating way. “I think it’s because I did what he wanted. Or because he didn’t understand me.”

Troy frowns. “Man, it really shows us how messed up Pierce was.”

“You have to admit, though,” says Abed, “The concept and execution were pretty amazing.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But it still sucked.”

Abed nods. “I’m not sure if I’m totally satisfied with how it turned out. But Pierce was good at what he set out to do, that’s for sure.”

He locks eyes with Abed again, and nods. “Yeah,” he says, softly. “He was.”

There’s a moment of quiet between them, where he thinks about how Abed had become Evil Abed when he had left for the Air Conditioning Repair School, and then he thinks about leaving Abed the second time and that game of lava, and then he thinks about meeting LeVar for the first time in the documentary, and a wave of nostalgia washes over him.

“Are you seriously bonding over agreeing that Pierce was a dick? We knew that!” says Jeff, exasperated, which only really cements Troy’s nostalgia, because yeah, Troy’s emotions don’t make a lot of sense all the time, and also it’s such a Jeff thing to say.

“It’s a surprisingly good documentary, Abed,” says Frankie awkwardly.

Abed looks at Troy again, eyebrow raised, and then turns to Frankie. “I’m sorry in advance for the Dean’s terrible spending in the next one,” he says, matter-of-fact, and they all break out into laughter and overlapping chatter over the memory of the Dean’s breakdown while Abed gets up to change the video on his laptop.

After watching the documentaries, Abed finds Troy in the kitchen, washing up dishes.

“I forgot about the pact we had about Firefly,” he says as Troy continues to hum.

Troy doesn’t look up from the plate he’s scrubbing. “I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I think I’m still mad at you, too. But Jeff’s probably going to try something like the friendship hats again if we don’t talk about it. Also, I miss filming you.” At this Troy looks up and sets down the bowl he’s moved onto. “I don’t film as much anymore. I didn’t notice until I saw all the remakes and films we made together.”

“I miss you too,” says Troy, quiet and surprised. His eyes have gone all soft; it surprises Abed, how well he understands Troy’s facial expression. Like he still has all of Troy’s mood and reactions memorized, the way he’s memorized dozens of facial expressions from sitcoms like _Friends._

“I guess I just worried that when you went out into the world, you’d realize that I was lame all along. Or too much effort. Or too crazy.” He shrugs, but Troy’s face gets closed off and angry again. “And then I had to save you, and you still didn’t come back. Or realize that it was me. Or send more things other than postcards.”

“Postcards are way cooler than emails!” cries Troy, and Abed shrugs again, quiet. “Also, you’re the coolest person I know.”

“Shirley said Britta said I got less...me after you left,” says Abed. “I guess I miss me, too.”

“Look,” replies Troy, stepping forward into Abed’s space. “We don’t have to be best friends just yet. But let’s at least try being friends again.”

Abed nods, and holds out his hand, letting the other hover over his chest. Troy’s eyes widen as he realizes what Abed’s saying, and mirrors Abed’s gesture. They thump their hands over their hearts as they clap in unison, twice, the handshake familiar as ever, even though Abed hasn’t done it in years. “Cool,” says Abed, smiling a little. “Cool cool cool.”

Troy smiles back, one of those magic Troy smiles Abed has always loved. “Cool,” he echoes back, and then frowns. “Now can you please explain what’s going on with the Dean and Jeff? And Jeff and Britta? Because they, like, live together but they’re not together? And no one will explain whether or not Jeff has already slept with Frankie, because he’s not pursuing her but I don’t think they’ve boned? Also, what happened to Reggie in Inspector Spacetime?”

Abed says, “Do you want to rewatch our old movies together?”

“Duh-doy,” says Troy, grinning, and makes his way to the living room.

Troy wakes up still curled on the couch, Abed’s hoodie draped over him, but Abed not in sight. He blinks sleepily, then rubs his eyes. “Oh,” says Annie above him, with an expression that reveals she’s obviously been hovering but is pretending like it’s chance she’s here to watch him wake up, “you’re awake. Abed got up a couple hours ago.”

“Why didn’t Jeff take me back to his apartment last night?”

She shrugs. “Something about you deciding to stay up and binge something with Abed? I don’t know. Do you want some breakfast?”

“If I say yes, are you gonna interrogate me about whether or not Abed and I are friends again?”

“Noooo,” she says, in Annie-talk for _yes, absolutely, but I’m going to make amazing pancakes to make up for it, and, if asked and probably accompanied with a lame lecture, I’ll also make you Special Drink._ Troy decides that’s probably enough of a trade-off, so he gets up and, without thinking, puts on Abed’s hoodie.

Annie raises an eyebrow at this, but doesn’t say anything, instead migrating towards the kitchen. 

“Where’s Abed?” Troy asks, as she puts milk on the stove for hot chocolate. Not Special Drink, but a very acceptable morning drink, so he’ll take it. 

“He’s working on your D&D character,” she says. “Since I’m still playing as Hector the Well Endowed. He’ll probably talk to you later about it. You might want to name your character yourself, though.” She pauses, then gives Troy a worried look. “We’re playing tomorrow night. That is, if you want to play, of course. If you and Abed—”

“We made up last night,” says Troy tiredly. “We watched our old Kickpuncher remakes.” 

“Really?” she says, pretending to sound surprised and uninterested, when she’s _clearly_ very invested. “How did that go?”

“I should probably go soon,” says Troy awkwardly, if only to avoid Annie’s questioning, because it’s _weird,_ why can’t she just leave it at ‘he and Abed are friends again’, seriously! “I mean, I should probably change clothes.” He lifts his arm up, and remembers he’s wearing Abed’s hoodie, and then realizes it smells like Abed and laundry detergent, and his stomach does a weird thing, and so he lowers his arm awkwardly.

“I’m sure you can borrow something of Abed’s,” says Annie, wiggling her eyebrows.

“What’s wrong with your eyebrows?”

“Nothing,” she sings, continuing to wiggle them. She hands him a steaming mug of hot chocolate, though, so Troy decides to let it go, and then pours herself a cup of coffee.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” she says, pointing at her cup. “I’m not supposed to be drinking this.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay,” he says, and takes a sip of his hot chocolate. “I should probably leave to shower, though.”

“Oh.” Annie deflates for a moment, takes a long, kind of aggressive sip of coffee, and then lights up again. “Oh! You can shower here?”

“I need some shampoo.”

“Oh. Maybe Jeff can bring it over later today. It’s just that I haven’t seen you in forever, and now that Abed’s not mad at you, we can all hang out like we used to! I miss you guys.” She smiles her nostalgic smile and does that thing where her eyes get extra like a Disney character and Troy sighs inwardly. “I loved being your roommate.”

“Okay,” he says. “Maybe I can borrow Abed’s deodorant and clothing and stuff. I can shower later. I don’t think I smell that bad.”

“Troy,” says Annie, very sweetly, “nothing will be worse than the way you smelled when I first moved into our apartment.”

He’s about to say thanks, and then his brain catches up with his mouth, and he sits there, confused, before he’s able to form words of his own. “Hey,” he says, furrowing his brow, “you know better than to make your tone say ‘compliment’ and your words say ‘insult.’ It wrinkles my brain!”

“Sorry,” she says, not sounding very sorry at all. 

He pauses, and then decides if he can’t talk to Annie about this stuff, he probably can’t talk to anyone, so he says, “He saved me from the pirates, you know.”

“Um. What?”

“He can track us, remember?” Troy says, and then stops, trying to figure out to explain it. “Honestly, I don’t really know how he did it. But I know he found out and told the Air Conditioning Repair School, but it was a weirdly quick turn-around time, because we were only captured for, like, ten minutes. Because the Air Conditioning Repair School found us and then took out the pirates, I guess. I don’t know.”

“But the news—”

Troy shrugs, suddenly feeling awkward about it. “I think they let people believe it went on longer than it actually did to like, preserving the secrecy about the cult.”

“The cult?!”

At that point, Abed enters from the bedroom he’s staying in, clutching a piece of paper and in just an Inspector Spacetime t-shirt and jeans. Troy’s taken aback momentarily at Abed’s bare arms, which have more shape and muscle to them than expected, even though Troy _knows_ Abed is stronger than he is.

Annie looks like she wants to ask more questions, but ultimately decides against it.

As he watches, Abed pulls out a sweater and begins putting it on. “You made hot chocolate,” he says to Annie.

“Yup,” she says. “Want some?”

“Pew pew,” he responds, making a finger gun, which is universally known as Abed for _yes._ To Troy, he hands out the paper, then pauses, eyes unfocusing and refocusing.

Troy watches, confused, as Abed’s mouth opens, and he starts speaking in his alien language that he made that one week Annie spiked their coffee, and then shuts his mouth again. “Abed?” says Annie, concerned. Troy steps forward, not touching—sometimes, when he gets freaked out, Abed doesn’t like being touched.

His mouth opens again. “Sorry,” he says, “momentary malfunction.” And then, to Troy, “You’re wearing my hoodie.” He sounds winded, weirdly, or maybe just stressed. He’s still holding his hand out; he notices this, frowns, and puts his arm down, then appears to remember why his arm was out and hands the paper more forcefully to Troy. “Your character sheet.”

“Do you, uh. Do you want the hoodie back?” says Troy carefully.

“No, it’s okay. You look good in it.” He doesn’t say much beyond that, but he still sounds a little winded.

“Okay,” says Troy, and looks down at the character sheet. “So, uh...what am I looking at?”

Abed comes back to life, taking a sip of the hot chocolate and making the expression that people do when they drink their first sip of coffee for the day, which makes Troy smile. Then, he steps into Troy’s space to point at the sheet, which is suddenly overwhelming, because Abed smells like Abed and it’s been a while and Troy’s heart is kind of jumpy knowing Abed is so close, and it’s weirdly distracting. “So,” says Abed, not noticing, “The party is already balanced so that everyone has classes they all like, but the party needs each member to succeed, so I had to choose a class that fills a missing niche while also being a character you’d enjoy playing…”

They stand like that for a while as Abed explains everything to Troy and Troy for some reason kind of forgets how to breathe. 

It’s fine.

Abed’s surprised at how strongly he reacts to Troy in his hoodie; he’s more surprised at how he goes non-verbal for forty-three seconds when Annie asks if Troy can borrow some of his clothes, since they don’t have a car and Jeff doesn’t want to pick Troy up, and Troy says something about how he can ask Abed himself. Abed’s brain makes the TV static noise at the thought of Troy in his clothing, which is startling and confusing and also, _Troy in his clothing._ Abed leads Troy to his room silently and rifles in his suitcase for a while. He pulls out a t-shirt that should fit him and some pants he stole from Jeff a while ago that he’s been meaning to return.

Troy says, “Are these Jeff’s?”

“Yes,” replies Abed, surprised his voice isn’t dry or squeaking. “He visited me for Spring Break and left these. I thought they’d fit you better than my jeans, unless you want to spend all of today in pyjamas.”

Troy eyes him seriously. “We can do that?”

“We’re adults,” Abed responds. “We can do whatever we want.” He goes back to digging in his suitcase, but he can hear Troy muttering to himself about how Jeff lied to him, again, seriously, that dude is like a fun vampire sometimes. He smiles at that, then pulls out his second pair of pyjamas, which Troy used to eye because they were Kickpuncher themed.

“Dude,” says Troy happily, “you still have those?”

Because it’s obvious that yes, Abed still has those, he doesn’t respond, and instead holds them out for Troy to take. Troy grabs them, pulls off Abed’s hoodie with some delicacy, and then shucks off his shirt, which is, surprisingly, A Lot. Maybe it’s because Abed hasn’t seen Troy in a couple years. Maybe it’s because Abed has recently come to terms with his attraction to men and has spent some time exploring it. Either way, his brain’s TV static gets much, much worse, as he eyes Troy’s bare back as Troy turns to put on the pyjama top.

Before he can help himself, he begins narrating it in his head like one of Annie’s romance novels, partially to calm himself down and partially to process what's happening in front of him: _his back muscles ripple,_ says Abed’s brain, which totally is not calming him down, _as he begins to put on Abed’s shirt. It’s small on him, enough that when he turns to Abed and tugs on it, Abed can still see his muscles underneath,_ continues his treacherous brain, and even the third person isn’t helping—

“Abed? Hello? Do you think this is too small?”

“Sorry,” says Abed. “I was flashbacking.” 

He feels bad for lying—friends don’t lie—but before he can correct himself, Troy says, “Without me?” and Troy’s expression drops, and Abed suddenly feels way more guilty than he’s used to. Usually, Abed is pretty detached; he prides himself on having one foot out of reality—so what is going on?

“Yeah. Remember when Annie found a bunch of romance novels while we were helping Shirley clear out her garage? And forced us to read them?”

“Yeah,” says Troy, beginning to flashback himself, before he says, “Wait, how is that relevant?”

“Reminds me of a scene in them,” says Abed, shrugging, which is true, even if that’s not really what he was doing. 

“Oh,” says Troy. He looks objectively good in Abed’s pyjamas, says the running commentary in the back of his brain. And then, “Wait, what?”

“Nevermind,” says Abed, and takes his own shirt off to put on his other pair of pyjamas. Fortunately, Troy seems to let it go. After they’ve both changed, Abed says, “Wait. Was Annie drinking hot chocolate or coffee?”

“Coffee,” says Troy absentmindedly, and then his face gets dramatic and stressed, “Oh no, we forgot to eat breakfast! She was thinking of making something.”

“One moment,” says Abed, and quickly types a message into the groupchat: _Annie’s drinking again._ Troy eyes him suspiciously until he shows Troy his phone screen and explains, “Last time she drank coffee, it escalated until she stopped sleeping. Her coworkers at the FBI called _us_ because they didn’t know what to do. Also, they promised they’d tell us what happened that one Halloween we all can’t remember if we got her to stop. I think Jeff was the one who bargained for that deal.”

“Wait, why do they know?”

Abed shrugs. “If she’s drinking coffee, we may never know.”

Jeff slams the door open about twenty minutes later; Shirley marches behind him, as does Britta. Dean Pelton and Frankie hover anxiously in the doorway. Troy jumps at the sudden noise; Abed looks up, expectant, and nods at their entrance. Annie jumps up with sudden nervousness, nearly knocking her cup over, and quickly rights it, then surveys the scene in front of her. She looks over to Troy with a pleading face. “Troy,” she whimpers, “You weren’t supposed to say anything!”

“Say _what,_ Annie,” calls Jeff, marching towards her.

She not-so-subtly slides the mug behind her and crosses her arms. “Nothing,” she calls back, as sweetly as she can.

Britta marches beside him, but as she crosses the room, she tosses Troy a bag full of—toiletries? And clothes?—before she stands in front of Annie, arms crossed. “We know you’ve been drinking again. And as your friends…”

“Did my friends from _Virginia_ set you guys up for this?” cries Annie, incredulous. “You guys, I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Jeff crowds her space, reaching an arm behind her. Troy half-expects that old, weird sexual tension to be there as he stands in front of her and wraps his arm around her, presumably to grab the coffee cup, but Annie just stands tall and annoyed; even Jeff seems not to notice or care how close they’re standing together. “You guys, this is such an invasion of privacy,” she says.

“A-ha!” says Jeff, pulling out the mug, and liquid sloshes inside. He holds it up triumphantly, then takes a long sip. “Coffee.” He points an accusing finger at her chest, looking down at her with a kind of disappointment.

She bats it away. “Troy,” she whines. “I told you not to say anything.”

“You know you’re not supposed to drink,” says Shirley, frowning, as she confiscates the cup from Jeff. “It’s not good for you.”

“Yeah,” says Britta. “We’re just trying to help.”

“Well, then maybe you guys should let me do my thing! Stop babying me!”

“We’re not _babying_ you,” replies Britta, and Annie scoffs. Watching Annie begin to talk as Jeff opens his point to say something at the same time, Troy is pretty certain he knows how the argument will go, and Annie’s disappointed Disney eyes are _seriously_ effective, and so, feeling a little guilty, he slips out of the room, confident no one notices.

Abed’s been watching the whole thing go down; Annie keeps sending him looks that are probably supposed to mean something—he assumes they mean betrayal, but he’s not sure. Either way, he watches as Troy’s face does something complicated and he starts scratching the back of his neck the way he does when he’s confused by something because Abed once mentioned that’s what people do in TV when they’re confused or anxious or feeling awkward (and the knowledge that Troy still does it, that his body language is still adapted to be understandable to Abed does something strange to Abed’s chest that he really doesn’t want to think about), and then Troy inches out of the apartment.

After a couple moments of watching the scene unfold, Abed decides he knows how it will go: Annie will eventually either start screaming, which will really upset his ears, or she’ll say something mean. Either way, it’ll cause everyone to start arguing, and then Jeff will fix it with a classic Winger Speech.

So. Abed knows how this situation will go.

He follows Troy outside. 

Troy keeps walking; he goes down the stairs and actually steps outside of the building, looking up to the blue sky. He’s still in pyjamas; it’s hot out, too, and Abed frowns at how Troy stands there and scratches at his arms and checks his phone for a moment, before turning and making eye contact with Abed.

He jumps. “Abed?”

“I followed you,” says Abed, even though that’s obvious. 

“I know, buddy. But why?”

“I didn’t know why you left,” says Abed, after a while. “I knew how the scene upstairs would play out, but not this one.”

“Sorry,” says Troy, his face getting wrinkled and pained. “I just needed some air. I wasn’t going to leave.”

Abed realizes belatedly it sounds like he was accusing Troy of something, and pauses. “That’s not what I meant,” he tries. “I meant that I didn’t know why you went outside. I didn’t think you were going to leave.” He thinks for a moment. “It would be out of character for you to leave without telling anyone. Based on past evidence, you’ve always warned us before leaving. I wasn’t afraid of you disappearing. I was just curious about why you went outside.”

Troy relaxes a bit, but keeps scratching his arm. “Aren’t you hot? In long sleeve flannels?”

Abed shrugs. “I guess it’s weird to be outside in pyjamas,” he says, “but it’s not so bad. You know I don’t like wearing short sleeves.”

“Yeah,” says Troy, voice soft. “I remember.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

  
  
“Technically,” says Troy, “you didn’t ask anything.” 

“You’re stalling.”

Troy turns to face Abed directly and Abed takes him in, calculating. He imagines it the way a computer might—scanning facial expression: unreadable. Body language: closed, yet facing towards Abed. Results inconclusive. Subject takes a deep breath in and says, “Stop doing that, Abed. You’re not a computer.”

“Doing what?” says Abed.

“I know you’re pretending to do the calculating thing. You know I don’t like it.”

“Sorry.” He’d forgotten Troy was the only one who could catch when he did that.

“It’s just.” Troy frowns a moment. Abed knows sometimes Troy struggles with wording, so he waits patiently for Troy to compose his thoughts. “It’s just. You’re not a computer. Or a robot. Just because it takes a little longer for you sometimes to read body language and stuff doesn’t make you a calculator.” He shrugs. “You have a lot more person in you than most people I know.”

Abed studies him for a moment, taken aback. “I know that,” he says. “It just comforts people when I act a little more like a robot. I think it makes my emotionless appearance more accessible.”

Troy shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. “I guess if it makes you feel better, you should do it. I know you don’t like being told what to do.”

Abed cocks his head. “I don’t understand. Do you want me to or not?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know! I don’t know.” He throws up his hands and his eyes look a little wet. Abed blinks. “Do whatever you want. I don’t want to tell you what to do.” 

“You’re upset.”

Troy wipes at his eyes. He opens his mouth; his lips even form the word _no_ before he closes it again and frowns at the sudden effort not to lie to Abed. Abed cocks his head, waiting patiently for Troy to form the words. “I’m not mad at you,” says Troy, eventually, slowly. From the speed at which he says this, Abed assumes he’s picking his words carefully.

“I know,” says Abed. “When you’re mad at me, you don’t usually start crying.”

  
  
He expects Troy to reply that he’s not crying, but just Troy sniffles and nods. He sits down on the concrete steps. “I am upset,” he admits. “But it’s because I feel like...I missed so much. I guess I should have expected that. You guys are all so different, and it’s super awesome to see everyone, but also...not?”

“Huh,” says Abed. “But you’ve changed, too.”

“What?”

“I mean, it is different from when we were at Greendale. For one, you didn’t get upset when I said you were crying. And you didn’t deny it.” He makes a finger gun for emphasis.

Troy shrugs, wipes away a couple more tears. “I spent a lot of time crying in front of LeVar. It’s cool now.”

“Right,” continues Abed. “So you’ve changed, too. For another thing, you’re a lot more careful around me now than you used to be. I know that it’s not easy being the one left out; after you left, Annie tried to take on the role of making me fit in, but it was a lot harder to be a main character without you, and a lot easier to be a viewer. A fly on the wall.” Troy opens his mouth, but Abed holds his hand up. “My point is, a lot of things have changed, some for the better. Like how Jeff sorted through his feelings for Annie and properly moved on, and Annie actually moved on herself and stopped idolizing him. Or how Britta’s actually in graduate school and working on her self confidence issues. Or how Shirley’s business is doing well, and her relationship with religion has improved. But some things are worse without you. We’re missing your sense of whimsy, and distractibility during arguments, which used to diffuse tension. Jeff misses having someone who gives him a sense of responsibility in acting like a better role model. Britta misses having someone who is always in her camp. Annie misses having someone to help take care of me, and she misses a confidante her age. I think Shirley misses having a Christian.” He shrugs at that. “I miss someone who makes me a main character in my life again.”

“Abed—”

He shakes his head. “My point is, Troy, is that things have changed, but there’s still a hole here. We aren’t our best selves without you.”

Troy’s really crying now. Abed sits next to him and weighs the pros and cons of reaching out to hug him. Before he can decide, Troy wraps Abed into a hug himself, hiding his face into the crevice in between Abed’s shoulder and neck. It should be uncomfortable, but something in his chest shifts, like a puzzle piece settling into place, and Abed’s arms wrap around Troy without him really thinking about what he’s doing. “I thought everyone moved on.”

  
  
“They’re helping Annie with an out-of-control coffee addiction upstairs that her friends from Virginia asked us to deal with,” replies Abed. “We still need each other.”

“I don’t want to screw up and make you angry again,” says Troy softly. “I don’t want to make any mistakes.”

  
  
Abed feels Troy’s arms squeeze him a little tighter as he says this, and makes a monotone “oof” noise to remind Troy to ease up the pressure. Troy does. “I’m sorry,” says Abed, after a while. “I didn’t realize I was holding you to exceptionally high standards.”

  
  
“You aren’t. I’m just worried.”

  
  
“Oh,” says Abed. “Well, don’t. You’re back. I won’t ignore you again, I promise.”

  
  
Troy leans back at that, and by instinct they both do their handshake, two thumps on the chest in tempo with their clapping hands. Above them, Abed hears a telltale, “aww,” and turns to see the rest of the study group looking down at the two of them. “You guys,” says Annie, in that very tender way, and rushes closer to them. “It’s nice to see you both being friends again.”

  
  
Troy smiles at her, and pulls her into a group hug between him and Abed, then motions to the rest of the group as they squeeze into a group hug in the warm July sun.

  
It almost feels like being back at Greendale again.

After a while, Abed disappears to finish prepping for the night’s D&D session. He passes Troy a couple of notes to indicate how to introduce his character to the campaign, but for the most part he stays inside his room. Annie chats idly with Jeff; she’s apparently agreed not to drink any more coffee after guiltily revealing she knows what happened that Halloween.

Frankie disappears after a while (apparently, she doesn’t like to play with them), too, and so it’s just them, minus Pierce.

“It’s weird being back without him,” Troy says to Shirley.

“Yes,” says Shirley, looking pained, like it’s hard to speak ill of the dead but desperately wanting to regardless. “He always...made us aware he was there.”

  
  
Troy claps her shoulder, deciding to rescue her. “I mean, I feel weird saying this ‘cause I have all of his money now, but I’m glad he’s gone. He always made us our worst selves.”

She nods, then adds, “But God rest his soul,” to make up for her agreement.

He recognizes this as Shirley-speak for ‘yes, but he’s still dead, Troy’ and bobs his head, surveying the group. Jeff, Annie, and Britta have devolved into laughter as Annie and Britta are doing a stupid dance and Jeff is giving them his fond but deeply embarrassed look. Shirley follows his gaze and smiles as well.

“I’m glad Abed and Annie decided to come back to Greendale for the fourth,” Shirley says. “And I’m glad Abed is not punishing you anymore. It wasn’t very Christian of him.”

  
  
“He’s Muslim,” points out Troy.

She shrugs at that, mostly because _It wasn’t very Christian of him_ is Shirley for _I didn’t think he was being fair,_ and he wanders away to take a shower so his hair can dry before he goes to bed.

Shirley makes dinner, but Annie makes buttered noodles for Abed, partially because she claims she’s perfected them. The smell of them draws Abed out of his room, saying “pew pew” as he spots Annie boiling water. “As soon as Shirley’s finished making dinner we’re starting, right?” she says. “Because I saw the _cutest_ dice the other day, you guys, and I’ve been waiting _so long_ to use them.”

“Dice?” says Troy.

“Oh,” says Abed. “We’ve started using our own dice, unlike last time we played. At this point, Annie, Shirley, and the Dean have a dice addiction. Britta and Jeff each only use one set. I have a couple extras I never use, if you want one.”

“Like, to borrow?”

“To keep,” says Abed. “For my birthday last year, Annie got me a bunch of superhero themed dice.” He raises his fingers and walks briskly back into his room, then returns with a drawstring bag. “I think I have one that has a Spider-man Mask as the 20 on the d20.” At Troy’s puzzled expression, he explains, “A d20 is the 20-sided dice. It’s primarily what you use in Dungeons and Dragons.”

“I’ll help you,” says Annie, beside him. Abed starts setting up a weird looking shield-thing at the head of the table as Britta, Jeff, and Dean Pelton—Craig?—take their seats around the table in a formation that looks kind of like their old seating chart adapted to a circular table, except Dean Pel— _Craig_ is sitting where Pierce used to sit. Troy slides into his old seat right as Shirley places some hot food on the table and Abed begins to set the scene.

At first it’s confusing: they open up at a tavern, and Abed rigs a speaker to play tavern noises, which Troy finds distracting, and there aren’t turns anymore and he doesn’t know when to talk. But when Annie’s character Hector approaches Troy’s character, Helen the Berserker (he’d asked to play a hot, buff woman because he’d thought it’d be dope) to flirt with him, he finds himself slipping into a silly, high-pitched voice easily. 

Britta orders him fake-mead and chastises Annie as her bard, because something about girl-code and women taking care of each other, and Troy blinks, because _right,_ he’s playing a woman. 

After that he falls into it: Abed’s soothing voice perfectly explains the setting, the dangers, the stupid shenanigans Britta and Jeff get themselves into by making stupid bets. They all do voices: even Jeff gets into character, making weird noises when his warlock uses magic.

At some point, when it’s been hours and they’ve taken up the sidequest Abed’s laid out for them as a way of introducing Helen to the party, Troy looks to Abed across the table, who’s still in character. He’s hunched over pretending to be the wizard they’re interrogating, the wizard who raised Helen. For a moment, fondness flashes over Abed’s face, though Troy isn’t sure if it’s the wizard’s or Abed’s fondness, but then as Jeff starts arguing with Annie about the best course of action, Abed turns back into Abed and winks, catching Troy by surprise. He pauses, then winks awkwardly back.

“I have an idea,” he says as Helen, finally. “Craig, you have that spell that modifies memory, right? Let’s use the fact he trusts me to our advantage.”

They go silent, and all turn to look at him. “Okay,” says Annie as Hector, slowly. “That’s a good idea.”

Jeff agrees with her, and because Jeff agrees, so does everyone else.

It’s a pretty badass moment, and Jeff’s warlock even buys him a mead at the tavern after it works.

It’s only afterward, when Abed suggests he stay the night again, since they’re still in pyjamas and they didn’t get to make a crazy blanket fort or anything today, and Troy says yes—it’s only afterwards, that he realizes some twisting in his stomach has un-twisted, and the knots have unknotted, and he feels as if no time has really passed at all. The study group still needs him, just like Abed says.

They stay up for a while on the couch watching the new animated series of _Pokémon_ , which is the only thing of interest on TV right now. “I can’t believe I missed the new game,” says Troy beside Abed as Abed watches Troy instead of the episode, in part because he's already seen it. Troy’s sitting close, but not quite touching him. Their thighs are a fraction of an inch apart. He tries to figure out what percentage of him wants to move closer and brush their legs together.

He tears his gaze away and looks at the screen. “It’s pretty cool,” he says. “There’s a lot of references to _FireRed_ and _LeafGreen_.” Troy nods appreciatively. “You can even battle Red or Green at the end of the game.” He thinks about it for a moment. “It implies that despite their history, they end up close friends.” 

“History?” says Troy, absentmindedly.

“Yeah,” replies Abed. “The comics and anime both imply an antagonistic relationship between Red/Ash and Green/Blue/Gary. Though Red as a character is much more complex than Ash is.” He looks at Ash on screen, calculating and considering his words. “Red is often interpreted as neuroatypical, in part due to his nonverbal nature. But Green still is his friend, even though, in the comics—and implied in the games—Red leaves without warning.”

Troy looks at Abed then, suddenly more interested in what Abed has to say. “What about in the anime? With Ash leaving to all these new places to better himself?”

Abed shrugs. “I haven’t actually followed the animated series,” he says. “I was never a fan of _Pokémon._ I always preferred sitcoms, but Annie recently got me into the games.” Troy deflates beside him. He frowns. “Based on the formulaic nature of the animated series, I’d assume he and Gary are not only friends, but also have forgiven each other for their antagonistic relationship.” 

“Gary/Blue is the asshole one, right?”

“Pew pew,” says Abed, making a finger gun, in lieu of saying _you’re right._

Troy seems to get it. He moves the half inch closer, so their thighs are touching. Abed blinks down at their legs, then up at Troy. He’d miscalculated; now that their legs are touching, his mind is returning dangerously to TV static. “I saw a lot of cool stuff on that boat,” says Troy cautiously, watching Abed. It’s still strange to see Troy be so careful with him.

“Like what?”

Troy shrugs. “I can make a lot of cool food. And repair air conditioners in a lot more countries.”

Abed frowns.

“I went to Pride in Iceland?” tries Troy.

Abed’s brain threatens to become 100% TV static. Pikachu makes a noise on the television. “Pride?” says Abed, trying to sound incredibly neutral, like Troy’s about to tell an interesting story that he has no personal stake in.

“Yeah, man,” says Troy, not noticing. “And they knew who LeVar was! It was so cool.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool,” says Abed, somewhat tonelessly.

“Dude.” Troy’s brows furrow. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s late, and running D&D always makes me tired.”

At that moment, Annie swoops in to save him, or probably because her timing has always been a little too on the nose, she swoops in to ask them to turn off the television. “Are you guys going to bed soon?” she asks hopefully. “Because the TV’s a little noisy, and I’d like to go to sleep.” She drags out the word ‘little’ in the way that Abed has learned means ‘very, very’ instead of actually meaning ‘little.’

“Yeah,” says Troy. “Abed was just saying how tired he is.”

“Oh, good,” says Annie, beaming and clapping her hands. She hovers near the TV, about to turn it off. Then she sighs, looking at the pair of them, her expression verging on the face she makes when she’s flashbacking, so Abed assumes she’s feeling nostalgic and maybe even wistful. Then she pointedly says, “You’re not going to sleep on the couch again, are you, Troy?”

Troy frowns. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Abed also frowns, mentally weighing the options. Troy could sleep with Annie, but that might be awkward, and their sleep schedules aren’t really compatible. Alternatively, Troy could sleep with Abed, which seems functionally like the best option. Even if it’s been a couple years since they’ve shared a bed, they’ve done it multiple times before. Their sleep schedule is more compatible than Annie’s. However, Abed’s been reacting in heightened and confusing ways since Troy has come back; he worries this could be a problem.

“It’s just,” continues Annie, unaware of his calculations, “you’re prone to sleeping in, and it’s hard to be so quiet when you’re in the living room,” which really means, _Abed, can he sleep in your room,_ because she isn’t offering her own room and doesn’t want him to sleep in the living room, so Abed’s pretty certain this is her trying to give him a kind of social cue. He sighs.

Troy nods. “Um,” he starts to say, and Abed says, “Troy, do you want to sleep in my room? The bed is way bigger than a twin, so it’ll be easy to share and spacious at the same time,” and Troy relaxes. “Plus, since you’re back, I’m allowing us to use the air conditioning.” Annie, behind Troy, makes a quiet fist and pulls it towards her in silent victory. 

“Yeah, that works,” says Troy. And then, “You stopped using air conditioning?”

“He really hates the Air Conditioning Repair School,” says Annie, and Abed makes a finger gun in her direction to indicate she’s telling the truth.

“Right,” says Troy. “Okay, I’m gonna change into my pyjamas and you can shower and then we can brush our teeth?”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.”

They actually end up doing it in the reverse order.

They brush their teeth together in silence, but in an easy rhythm. It’s weird, how much of it is muscle memory for Troy; Abed hands him the floss and toothpaste exactly when he needs it, too, which means it’s probably muscle memory for Abed, or that Abed is so smart that he just psychically knows what Troy needs and when he needs it.

Actually, thinking about it, Abed’s probably psychic.

Either way, they brush their teeth and wash their faces and then Abed showers while Troy goes into the room to change into pyjamas. Abed takes fast showers; within five minutes, he’s stepping into his room with a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping down his long neck. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly, or as sheepishly as Abed can be, “I realized I left my other pair of pyjamas here. The ones that match yours.”

Troy’s about to ask what he means, but then he gets distracted by how Abed’s longer hair curls at the base of his neck while wet and drips down his chest, and at the long line of Abed’s bare chest, and at his longer fingers holding up the towel, and at the V that dips into that towel, and then shakes his head. “You mean the ones you used to wear at Greendale?” And then he pauses. “How many pairs of pyjamas did you pack?”

“Four,” says Abed. “I figured that if I was going back to Greendale, there was an 80% chance of pyjama-related shenanigans, and I wanted to be prepared.” He steps into the room and bends over his suitcase. Troy watches him bend and blushes, turning away. 

“Do you want me to leave so you can change? I can get us some water glasses from the kitchen.”

“Okay,” says Abed, turning back to look at Troy. Belatedly, Troy realizes there’s little droplets of water on Abed’s long eyelashes. He tries not to think about it, but Abed’s expression is so warm and open and soft that it’s hard not to, so he hurries out of the room before he does or says anything stupid, like saying, _are you sure you’re ok with sharing a bed with me if I like guys_ and _I forgot how attractive you are_ or even _dude_ but in a horribly tender and fond way.

He tries not to focus on these thoughts as he goes to get them water. _Jeff’s_ attractive, and Troy might panic at sleeping in a bed with Jeff, but it’s not that big of a deal when it’s Abed. Right?

It’s just that it’s been a while.

When he comes back into the room, Abed’s looking between the two sides of the bed, head cocked. His pyjamas are on, and his hair is all tousled and cute. Troy smiles. “Right side next to the window might get too cold,” says Abed, “but it provides a better means of escape.”

“You’re faster than I am,” counters Troy. “So if you took the left, we’d still probably get to the window at the same time.”

“So I’d be sacrificing a few seconds for the assurance that you’d have time to escape,” says Abed, tilting his head and gesturing with his pointer finger in the way that he does and turning to make eye contact with Troy. “I think that’s a good point,” he says, and takes his water glass from Troy, placing it on the nightstand on the left and peeling back the covers.

The thought of that, of how without argument Abed agrees to sacrifice a little of his time for Troy’s hypothetical safety, makes Troy’s stomach flip a little too aggressively. “Cool,” he says, walking towards the right.

“Cool cool cool,” replies Abed. “Also, you have to tell me what you’re comfortable with in bed because it’s been a couple years and so things have presumably changed, but I’m not very good at picking up on the cues as to what’s okay and what’s not okay.”

Troy feels his cheeks heat up. “In bed?!” he splutters.

Abed frowns. “Sleeping together,” he corrects.

“ _Sleeping together_?!” cries Troy.

“I—oh,” says Abed. “Another fanfic trope.” He clicks his tongue. “Classic misunderstanding. Cool cool cool. No, I meant sleeping in the bed together.”

“Oh,” says Troy.

“Did I upset you?”

“No, I, um—” Troy pauses, and collects himself. He takes a drink of water while Abed studies him patiently. He can see Abed turn into Robot Abed for a moment, which annoys him, but then Abed shifts back into Abed and still seems confused. He tries to put together the words in his head, but they don’t come. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says finally. “I guess I was worried you wouldn’t want to share a bed with me because you knew I liked boys?”

All at once Abed goes completely neutral again, and says, “That’s a bad thing? Not telling someone your orientation before sleeping in the same bed as them?” But his questions don’t sound like questions; he sounds completely blank. It’s weird.

“Uh,” says Troy, and then tries to sort out his thoughts. He’s not great with words, not like Abed. He bites his lower lip and thinks. “Some people say it is? LeVar said it isn’t? I don’t know.” He frowns. “Shirley would say that it’s okay not to tell someone, but Britta might say you should.”

Abed nods, processing. “What about Annie? Or Jeff?”

Troy shrugs.

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Should I have told you I’m bisexual before I offered my bed?” His tone is still completely neutral. All of a sudden Troy’s brain unwrinkles and he gets it, why Abed’s been so neutral and careful and question-y. 

“Nah,” says Troy, and offers out his hand; they do their handshake, that comforting thump-thump. And then, carefully, “So you’re not mad?”

“No,” says Abed, suddenly back to his Abed-tone, which isn’t as toneless as people think it is.

“Cool,” says Troy, and turns over to go to sleep.

Abed clicks off the lamp next to him and murmurs, “Cool cool cool.”

They wake up pressed together, which Abed recognizes immediately as the inevitable outcome of a fanfic, so he mostly blames himself for not realizing it earlier. Either way, Troy’s nestled his head into Abed’s chest, breathing softly and quietly, and their legs are intertwined. “This is nice,” murmurs Troy into Abed’s chest, moving a little closer, and then freezing.

Abed closes his eyes in case it makes Troy feel better.

“I wish my mouth was further from my brain,” says Troy sleepily to himself, but he doesn’t move. A solid portion of Abed is grateful for this; he’s comfortable. His head is over Troy’s, mouth and nose pressed into his hair, and he’s surprised to find he likes the smell of Troy’s shampoo and the intimacy of it.

Troy keeps mumbling to himself embarrassedly, so Abed just tugs him closer and hushes him. “This is nice,” he agrees. “We can stay like this a little longer if you want.”

Troy’s head shifts to blink at Abed. He still has crust around the edges of his eyes. He yawns, and stretches like a cat, then returns to that comfortable position. “Get out of my brain,” he says softly, and begins to fall back asleep. Abed waits for a while, then rests like that, unsure if it’s fair that he’s enjoying it so much.

Troy seems happy, though, but as far as he remembers Troy doesn’t wake up very quickly, and takes some time to regain the ability to make good decisions.

He frowns. He’s not hurting anyone by sleeping a little longer. 

He thinks for a while about Troy like that, looking up at him: the way his mouth and full lips had barely moved when he spoke, the way he had looked up from his dark eyelashes; he wonders what about the image of Troy, sleepy in his arms, had caused him to memorize it so thoroughly and so instinctually.

They doze for a while, and then at some point Troy actually stirs, which means Abed has to untangle himself from Troy’s embrace. Troy grumbles at the loss of heat, but watches as Abed gets up and stretches. His eyes track a patch of Abed’s stomach that comes into view, but Troy does that with everyone around his age, so Abed doesn’t think much of it.

Abed thinks for a while before he says, “We should do Troy and Abed in the Morning.”

“We haven’t told anyone we’re doing it. The people at home will be so surprised,” says Troy, but he’s stretching, too, and Abed before he can help it is memorizing the soft sound he makes as he stretches, and the space of bare skin that dips into his pants that appears when Troy’s shirt hikes up, and then wishes he hadn’t memorized the image at all. Troy frowns. “I don’t think Britta brought me a suit jacket.”

Abed wordlessly passes him a cardigan. Troy smiles.

SCENE: LIVING ROOM OF ABED AND ANNIE’S AIRBNB APARTMENT. THE SUNLIGHT IS COMING IN SOFT AND GENTLE, WHILE TROY AND ABED SET UP ON STOOLS DRAGGED IN FROM THE KITCHEN. ABED IS HOLDING HIS _TROY AND ABED IN THE MORNING_ MUG, WHEREAS TROY IS HOLDING A WHITE ONE.

ABED: Hello, and welcome back after a four year hiatus! Wow, Troy, has it really been four years?!

TROY SMILES CHEERILY BACK AT HIM.

TROY: That’s right, Abed! 

ABED, MOTIONING WITH HIS ARM: Why don’t you tell us about what you’ve been doing during this time?

At this point, Annie walks in on Troy talking animatedly about his time at sea, and Abed smiling along. She surveys the scene: the familiar mugs, the stools, Troy in Abed’s cardigan and talking about his time in Argentina with LeVar Burton, while Abed discusses his time on set in Los Angeles. They both spot her a couple minutes after she spots them, breaking out into wider grins.

“Annie!” says Abed, in that faux-cheerful way. “Join us!”

She giggles. “Are you guys filming Troy and Abed in the morning?” She checks her watch. “Isn’t it a bit late in the morning?”

“It’s a Sunday morning special,” says Troy, also grinning and mimicking the facial expression of a somewhat deranged talk show host.

“Oh, of course!” Her mood lifts; she finds herself bouncing on her toes and clutching her phone to her chest, fighting back another fit of giggles. “Do you boys want hot chocolate for breakfast again?” she asks in her sunshine-and-rainbows voice, to which he looks at Abed and raises his eyebrows.

“Cut,” says Abed, raising his hand, and then inspects her with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow. “You’re using your sunshine-and-rainbows voice.”

“My what?” she says, shifting from foot to foot gently and excitedly.

“Your sunshine-and-rainbows voice,” explains Abed, “coined by Troy.” Troy waves when Abed points at him. “You usually do it when there's a guy you like, or when Troy or I make you really, really happy by doing something nice for you. Like the time I brought you tea and did a marathon of your favorite movies when you got really sick.”

  
  
“That was nice,” she agrees, smiling. “But I guess I’m just doing it because it’s really nice to see you guys being Troy and Abed again. I’ve really missed it.”

“Hm,” says Abed, looking at Troy. His expression remains basically the same, but Troy finds all the signs of deep-seated fondness: the careful crinkling of his eyes, the subtle quirk of his lips, the non-movement of his eyebrows, the way he taps it out with his hand against his thigh. “Do you want help making hot chocolate?”

  
  
“Yes, please,” says Annie.

They all hurry to the kitchen to help Annie measure out the milk and hot chocolate mix. Annie mentions how she kind of misses Special Drink sometimes, and Troy tells them about the time he introduced LeVar to Special Drink and ended up with food poisoning. They pour cereal: Choco Puffs for Troy and Abed, Raisin Bran for Annie. If Troy closes his eyes for a moment, this apartment is their old apartment, and the sheets are still hanging in the living room, forming a blanket fort. Annie looks wistful, too, saying, “Oh you guys, I’ve really missed this.”

“If we were superheroes,” says Troy, “Would you tell me your secret identities?”

Abed thinks about it for a moment. “That depends. In this situation, do we each know that the others are superheroes, or do we think that our roommates are regular humans?”

“Huh, I dunno,” replies Troy, mostly because he wants to hear Abed craft their superhero alternate reality. 

“I don’t think Annie would be a superhero,” says Abed, and Annie gasps offendedly, but Abed continues, “To have a successful story, you need a journalist slash person without powers to patch the superhero up when they return home bruised. Otherwise the superhero can’t do their job effectively.” 

At this, Annie reinflates and tosses her hair behind her back. “You think I’m narratively key, Abed?” she teases, and something low coils in Troy’s stomach, just for a moment, before she says, “But I feel like patching up the superhero is the love interest’s job.”

Abed considers this. “That’s true. In this scenario, I would have to change to be a love interest. Or,” here he pauses, splaying out his fingers like he’s setting the scene, “We could set up a narrative of rivals. It’s a bit more of a romance novel trope than an action movie trope,” he concedes, “but I think we could make it work. The dramatic irony of Annie knowing both Troy’s and my secret identities but being sworn not to say anything on top of Troy and my friendship compared to our secret identities’ rivalry would make a good story.” He pauses. “Hold on, I should write this down.”

“Dude, I totally forgot you could make us into a movie,” Troy exclaims happily, and Annie squeals in agreement.

“Have you seen his show, Troy? It’s so good!”

Abed looks up from his search for a pen and studies Troy, almost anxiously. Troy makes eye contact with him when he nods, saying, “It is. Jeff and Craig told me.” He gags. “Eugch. It’s never going to feel right calling Dean Pelton Craig.”

Abed softens again, then goes back to his search for a pen, but Troy can see the edges of a smile and can hear Abed’s humming. “I really liked all the Farscape references,” Troy adds, mostly to Annie, but a little bit to Abed, too. “But mostly I think it’s the coolest piece of television I’ve ever seen.”

Annie frowns. “Even better than Inspector Spacetime?”

Abed has paused again, doing that thing where he lays low and tries to be a fly on the wall, but Troy can tell he’s really invested in Troy’s answer. There’s something about that that makes Troy’s heart squishy, that Abed cares about Troy’s opinion, and Troy says, honestly and sincerely, “Way better than Inspector Spacetime. Inspector Spacetime is great, but it has its faults. Abed’s show recognizes its failings and addresses them. It’s so cool. And meta.”

He watches Abed out of the corner of his eye react in a pleased way, having found a pencil and started to write down the narrative he’d laid out. “So you like it,” says Abed.

“Yeah, dude. I always knew you were gonna get big.”

Abed shrugs. “I still need a movie to make me mainstream, and then I can make weird stuff for money. I was going to produce a cop movie—I think you saw the script before you left—but I don’t really like cops very much, and I never did get the script to a place where it was any good.” 

Annie tilts her head. “Is this the script that you were working on with that professor who handcuffed you to his file cabinet?”

Abed does a finger gun and says, “Pew pew,” in response.

Troy nods like this makes sense, and then freezes. “Wait,” he says, blinking rapidly as the words form meaning in his head. “Wait, what?”

Annie frowns over at him. “It was pretty terrible,” she agrees.

“Wait, _what_?!” cries Troy. “Abed—”

“Jeff already took care of it,” says Abed, snapping his fingers.

“Dude, that’s not okay.”

“Apparently I was being difficult.”

Troy looks at Annie for help; she frowns and shrugs. “Abed,” he says, placing a hand on Abed’s arm, and Abed’s gaze follows his hand, then returns back onto Troy’s face with a wide-eyed stare. “Everyone’s difficult sometimes. I don’t get a lot of stuff and everything is confusing. Annie tries to sneak coffee even when everyone in her life is trying to get her to quit. Jeff is mean sometimes. I can keep going for everyone we know. But you can’t chain everyone to a file cabinet when they annoy you!”

“He tried to teach me a lesson.”

“It’s a bad lesson.”

“Hm,” says Abed, and then makes a face like he wants to do something he’s not supposed to want to do. “That’s what the rest of the study group said when they found out, too.”

At that, Troy relaxes, realizing Abed isn’t parroting those professor’s words because he _believes_ them, but because he wants to see if _Troy_ believes them. He can see the calculating expression on Abed’s face, one that usually appears when something he’d simulated in the Dreamatorium plays out differently in real life. Something about _that_ realization makes Troy’s stomach twist again, and he un-relaxes.

“We’ve always got your back, Abed,” Annie assures him, and Abed’s expression disappears into one of general happiness. They clap their hands and bend their palms in different directions.

Troy blinks, discomfort forgotten. “What was that?” He points at their hands.

“It’s our handshake,” says Abed. “It doesn’t really work, but I think it makes Annie happy.”

“It does,” says Annie, surprisingly unruffled by Abed’s choice of words. “I’m happy to share it with you, though. It could be the...Trobedison handshake.”

“That’s clever,” says Abed, snapping his finger at her. She grins, and reaches out her hand to teach Troy the handshake.

It takes them a while to get the rhythm right, and just as Troy’s about to say they should reopen it for workshopping, the doorbell rings. 

Before either he or Abed can do anything about it, Annie’s up on her feet and rushes towards the door. “Who is it?” she calls without opening it, a habit picked up from her time living above Dildopolis. She raises herself on tip-toes to look into the cool circle thing that allows you to see who’s behind the door, but weird and bug-eyed. (Abed and Troy used to take turns looking at each other through it in their old apartment because it was super funny, and because Abed wanted to recreate that with his camera).

Beyond the door, there’s a muffled answer.

Annie turns back to Troy and Abed, who are still sitting in the kitchen, confused. “Troy, they’re asking for you. Something about...repairing City College?”

Troy raises his eyebrows. “City College?” he walks over to join her, then frowns. “But I promised Abed…”

Abed looks at him, and then at the door. “We shouldn’t have put on the air conditioning unit,” he says, matter-of-fact.

“What?” says Annie.

  
  
“Troy’s in a cult,” explains Abed. “It’s the Air Conditioning Repair School Annex at Greendale. They call him the One True Repairman, sent to repair man. Do you remember when Chang became dictator and Troy had to become a student at the Air Conditioning Repair School to rescue the Dean?” He snaps his fingers to punctuate his point.

  
  
Annie frowns. “They’re still interested in you? Didn’t you graduate?”

  
  
Troy thinks about it. “Technically.” He shrugs, then opens the door. “Hey.”

  
  
“There’s been a problem with City College’s air conditioning unit. They need you.”

Troy looks at Abed nervously, trying to gage his actions. “This isn’t sabotage under the guys of the Air Conditioning Repair School, is it?” asks Abed, not quite looking Troy in the eye.

The messenger looks like their brain is a little wrinkled. “Don’t you mean…under the guise?”

Abed glances in Troy’s direction, the sort of look he uses to indicate that someone doesn’t get it, that they’re out of the loop. The sort of look that reminds Troy that a long time ago, Troy chose Abed over both plumbing and air conditioning repair because watching TV with Abed was way better.

Troy crosses his arms. “Yeah, how many guys?”

The messenger in the doorway looks confused. They’re in that grey jumpsuit that functions as a uniform, with short cropped black hair. “We aren’t planning anything against City College, if that’s what you mean,” they say, frowning. “We’ve had three different people already try to fix it, but it’s just getting worse.”

  
  
Troy frowns. “You know I don’t like City College.”

  
  
“Pelton said to say they’re trying to rebuild burnt bridges,” replies the messenger.

Annie gasps, her eyes getting twinkly. “Is this… a conspiracy?”

  
  
“No,” says Abed. “They just have control over Greendale because the Air Conditioning Repair School Annex generates most of Greendale’s budget. Dean Pelton would never try to rebuild burnt bridges with City College. For all we know, they could be forcing the Dean’s hand.” He looks at Troy again, or a little bit past him, looking worried.

“I—” Troy feels his frown getting deeper. “Will someone get hurt if I don’t come?”

  
  
The messenger nods. “It could give tens of students heat stroke during next week’s forecasted heat wave.”

“Hold on,” says Annie, “Why doesn’t City College have the money to hire someone to fix it?”

The messenger’s eyebrows get wrinkled. “They’re hiring the One True Repairman,” they say, and produce a cheque.

Troy looks at the amount. He hears himself make a strangled noise and freezes, eyes wide as he stares at the cheque, unable to do anything else.

Abed, seeing this, walks up briskly and takes the cheque from him, then hums, and Troy distantly recognizes it as a _oh wow_ hum and not a bored hum. “That’s a lot,” he says, matter-of-fact, and then hands it to Annie, who makes a severe noise when she sees it, and gently puts it back in Troy’s hands.

At this, Troy reanimates.

“I should probably do this, right?” says Troy, and looks at Abed.

Abed shrugs.

  
  
“We could use the money to do something really cool. Like buy new costumes for a movie or something.”

Abed shrugs again. “Do whatever you want,” he says, but his voice sounds weird and monotonous. 

Troy feels his brain fold in on itself as he tries to figure out what Abed wants. “I did promise you we’d do stuff in our pyjamas today. Is it cool if I do this and come back?”

Abed nods, his movements jerky. 

“Okay,” says Troy, and turns to the messenger. “Let’s go.” To Abed and Annie he adds, “I’ll be back in an hour.” The messenger makes a noise of incredulity, but Troy waves it off.

“Are you...going to change?” asks the messenger.

Troy shakes his head. “I told Abed we’d spend the day in pyjamas,” he says. “I’m sticking to that. We’re gonna do something totally cool after.”

Abed does his finger gun to signal that Troy’s right.

After about thirty minutes, Abed says, “I’m going to walk to the mall.”

Annie glances up from her laptop, where she’s already caved and started answering work emails again. Abed’s fairly sure she’s also helping plan the 4th of July parade that Britta’s roped them all into protesting, but thinks it’s not narratively a good time to mention it. She looks at Abed inquisitively, noting he’s no longer wearing pyjamas with her forehead creased. “But Troy’s not back yet. We’ve still got thirty minutes.”

Abed nods. “I know, but there’s a movie showing at the mall I don’t want to miss.”

She cocks her head. “What movie? We can’t all go later? Or you could go with Troy?” She wiggles her eyebrows at Abed; Abed’s not sure how to interpret that.

“A movie,” says Abed lamely, walking towards the door. He knows better than to pretend to be a robot malfunctioning in front of Annie.

Annie makes a face at him. “Abed,” she says softly, “Are you mad at Troy?”

“No,” says Abed. He opens the door and begins to walk out.

“It’s okay if you are. I know you don’t like the Air Conditioning Repair School.”

He stops, turns, and cocks his head, considering the merits of explaining how he’s feeling to Annie. Truthfully, Abed has barely considered his own feelings. He lifts up his pointer finger to indicate he’s about to make a point, and pauses. Eventually he settles on saying, “Evidence points to the fact the job he took was dangerous. Multiple repairmen couldn’t fix the problem with City College. Also, it’s City College. They never have air-conditioning problems.”

He figures she’ll know what he means, and shuts the door gently behind him.

Troy returns with, like, six minutes to spare and a very cryptic text from Jeff that just says, _help. greendale campus. Now._ “Abed?” he calls as he opens the door. “I don’t think we’re going to get a pyjama day.” He hurries towards his room and pulls one jeans and a t-shirt. “Abed?” he calls again, when there’s no response. “Hello? Abed?” He walks out to the living room.

Annie’s staring at him guiltily. She’s frozen mid-action while packing her backpack with some stuff that Troy can’t see. “He left.”

Troy stops. His heart stops, too. “Why?”

She purses her lips, and says, “Did you get a weird text from Jeff?”

He frowns. “Did Abed go to deal with it?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Troy…” she starts, like she’s about to tell him something, then shakes her head. She sets her backpack down, and begins to pull on a cardigan, her nice yellow one, and some flats. “We should get to Greendale. Something’s wrong. I’ll tell you what happened on the way.”

He follows her out the door. “With Abed or with Greendale?”

She doesn’t respond. They continue to walk to Greendale; Annie explains as they walk that they chose this apartment because of its proximity to campus so they could cut down on Lyft costs. Troy responds that he doesn’t actually care, and what's going on with Greendale-slash-Abed. Annie dodges this question by hurrying across the street when the white walking man appears on the signal.

After a while, she says, “I think Abed’s upset with you, and I don’t think it’s my place to talk about it.” She frowns. “Also, I think the Dean got trapped in their office.” 

“Oh, classic Greendale hijinks?” says Troy, perking up.

She smiles at him and exhales excitedly. “I think so!” She looks just as nostalgic for classic Greendale hijinks as he feels, though his stomach is still weird, like he ate something wrong, at the thought of Abed being mad at him again. He’s not even sure why. Her phone buzzes, and she checks it. “Oh, and Abed’s going to meet us in the cafeteria.”

He frowns, then steels himself, then frowns again. “Can you ask him what genre we’re doing?”

“Already asked,” replies Annie happily. “He says fantasy, and to think Lord of the Rings, the Black Cauldron, that sort of thing.”

“Alright, milady,” says Troy, trying to get into character, but Jeff’s name for Annie kind of weird on his tongue, “Let’s go rescue the...king? Duke? I don’t know. The Dean.”

“The Dean,” agrees Annie, adopting a bad British accent. “I don’t think duke or king fits them very well.”

Troy nods.

_Long ago, Greendale lived in peace. Its underfunded classes were filled with laughter and teachers doing their very best to avoid teaching. Summer school was like any other year, devoid of morale and filled with sleepy, peaceful students. Stories of great paintball wars and pillow fights were just that: mere stories and legend, until Dean Pelton decided Greendale deserved to be mentioned in the Guiness Book of World Records. They offered priority registration to whomever could unite the campus in making a giant pillow-and-blanket fort, but it backfired: Chang, also known as Kevin, also known as El Tigre, as known as—_

“Abed, stop doing voiceover,” snaps Jeff from his place deep within their blanket fort. He crawls over to where Abed’s sitting.

Abed frowns. “But how will readers know what’s going on?”

“I think you mean viewers,” says Shirley, sweetly.

“There are no viewers,” Jeff growls, turning on Shirley.

Abed folds his hands and huffs over-dramatically. “Whatever, Jeff,” he says, pitching his voice high and annoyed like a princess might. “I think we need to find the Dean and save them.”

“What character is that?!” says Jeff, looking annoyed. “And no, the Dean got themself into this mess. _I’m_ here to prevent as much damage and stifle the war efforts as much as possible.” He glowers, then pinches his nose with his forefinger and thumb. “Oh my God, I've really become an administrator.”

“Annie and Troy are coming soon,” explains Abed, “and with the usage of sling-shot bean bags, I think we’ve moved into a fantasy pillow fight trope instead, meaning narratively, I’d function as the rowdy princess who sneaks out with the stranger with the help of the guard to track down and save the Dean. I’ve been basing my character somewhat off of Eilonwy in the Chronicles of Prydain, which is surprisingly literary for me.”

“You’re not sneaking out!” cries Jeff. “I need help here.”

“Yeah,” says Shirley, folding her arms over her chest. “I need to protect my sandwich shop.”

Abed does a finger gun to indicate he’s right. Shirley and Jeff lock eyes, huff frustratedly, and then move back to each section of their blanket fort, attached to Shirley’s Sandwiches, rearranging the wooden poles to fortify it. He’s made a small room for himself over in the corner, close to the exit to facilitate sneaking in and out.

He checks his phone to see whether or not Annie and Troy are any closer; their narrative timing seems a little off, but then again, this scene hasn’t been very long. Then, he carefully piles his bean bags into a small sack, so that he’s prepared when they inevitably have to leave, and fixes the wonky string on his slingshot.

Sure enough, the moment he finishes, Jeff ducks into his room and says, “Annie’s returned.”

(He appreciates that Jeff is finally accepting the genre; Annie has never visited this fort, but narratively, it makes sense she’d be a knight.)

“Cool. Cool cool cool,” says, and gets up to follow Jeff. Annie’s in pyjamas with throw pillows taped to her shoulders and chest to mimic a breastplate; Troy’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She’s got a pillow slung over her back and another, stiffer cushion taped to her arm like a shield, whereas Troy doesn’t have a weapon at all. “You changed,” he says, mostly to Troy. 

Troy shifts uncomfortably. “We had to walk here,” he says. 

“Where’d you get the stuff?” asks Jeff, mostly to Annie.

Annie smiles. “We got into a scrap with Leonard to get here.” She lowers her voice. “Did you know Chang’s leading some kind of rebellion again?”

“Not quite,” says Abed, snapping his fingers. “The Dean thought it would be a good idea to try and go for the world record for pillow forts again. Unfortunately, they made the same mistake as with paintball because they thought pillow forts couldn’t do as much damage as paintball.”

“They offered priority registration to the person who could unite campus and make the largest pillow fort,” Jeff says grimly, placing his hand on Abed’s shoulder. “We’re trying to keep peace and protect the school from damages.”

“Where’s Frankie?” asks Annie.

“She’s holding strong in the library,” Shirley says, placing a hand over her chest. “We lost communication with her an hour ago.”

“That’s a long time in pillow-fight years,” whispers Troy. “We should go check on her.”

“No,” says Jeff. “I’m sure she’s got the library covered. The most expensive equipment is here, in the cafeteria, mostly because the science labs are off-limits.”

“That rule won’t hold for long,” says Abed.

“Shut up, Abed,” says Jeff, which makes Abed’s chest twinge with pride. He really is accepting the genre.

“People have started using small bean-bags and the poles that hold up pillow forts to attack,” continues Abed, functionally ignoring Jeff. “We’re worried about them destroying the computers and books in the library, as well as coming for the kitchen materials in the cafeteria.” He pauses. “Shirley’s worried about looting.”

“You don’t have to call me out,” says Shirley darkly, and then says, much more sweetly, “But that’s right.”

“However, since the space between the cafeteria and library is crucial to actually fulfilling the Dean’s request, we’ve been under attack even though we’re just trying to keep school property from being damaged, which I assume is why Frankie and Britta haven’t been responding to our texts: they’re probably under serious siege. If they fall, Chang will turn his attention to us next.” He frowns. “Also, Dean Pelton is stuck in their office, since students are trying to attack them to get access to the prize, while faculty are trying to attack them for disrupting classes.”

“We have to save them!” gasps Annie.

“They brought this mess on themself,” responds Jeff, darkly. “Look, I need you guys to help us take care of Shirley’s Sandwiches. We’re also setting this place up as refuge for students who just want to stay on campus during classes without becoming involved.”

Abed looks at Troy, who hasn’t said anything for a while, and is surprised to see Troy looking at him with an expression Abed isn’t familiar with, and then Troy glances away. Shirley claps her hands, drawing his attention away, and says, “I’m sure you must be hungry. Do you want something to eat?”

They do, and so they eat sandwiches.

The meal reminds him somewhat of their second paintball game with Pierce, in that it’s somewhat tense, though Abed is the one brewing tension and Troy isn’t making eye contact with him. They eat their sandwiches in relative silence, but all in all it’s a pretty acceptable scene.

After a while, Jeff frowns at his phone. “Annie, I haven’t heard from Britta in a while. We may have to send you to check on her.”

“I could go,” offers Abed, if only because it’s his line.

“No,” says Jeff, predictably. “We need you here. Annie and Troy should go.”

“I should go with them,” insists Abed.

“Abed,” hisses Jeff, “I told you to stop doing a fantasy movie.”

“Technically,” says Abed, “This is more in-line with fantasy novel tropes. Overall, our special has been surprisingly literary. I’d chalk that up to the show ending once we moved away, and since this isn’t plot-heavy enough to constitute a good movie, we’re still in a more literary format.”

“Abed,” says Jeff gently, “we’re not in a book.”

“I know,” replies Abed. “But acknowledging the genre we’re in—a fanfic spoof of fantasy novels, or something like that, since it’s all getting a little complicated now—allows us to predict what might happen. Most likely, this dinner scene will end up in an argument between us on whether or not I should go with Troy and Annie, and I’ll end up sneaking out anyway.”

“No, you won’t, because—”

Whatever explanation Jeff has for him is stopped by a bean bag to the head. Jeff, clutching his head, whirls on the assailant; Leonard, holding a slingshot, ducks out of view just a little too slow. “You little—” snarls Jeff, snatching up a pillow beside him and diving towards Leonard. “No one touches the cafeteria! And I mean no one!” 

Annie looks wildly around. “More might be coming,” she says, pulling out her own pillow.

“We’ve got this,” says Shirley, spotting another attacker and moving towards them. “You and Troy need to get to the library. Jeff, Abed, and I will _kick their asses_.”

“No, I need to go with them,” says Abed.

“I know,” says Shirley sweetly, “but you said this was the conflict you wanted.”

“Pew pew,” he says, pleased, and grabs a pillow as well. 

Troy’s standing paralyzed, which is unusual for him, but does fit the narrative, and Abed grabs him just as Neil tries to hit him over the head. Shirley whirls and slams into Neil, while Abed tugs Troy towards Annie and out of the cafeteria. Troy looks at the scene for a moment, at the spot where he once was, and then breaks out into a run behind Annie.

Abed ducks under a pillow, releases a bean bag from his slingshot to aid their escape, and quickly follows.

They round a quiet corner, full of feathery fluff. It’s totally silent except for their footsteps and heaving breaths. “Thanks,” Troy whispers to Abed, but it’s obvious his heart isn’t in the line. “You saved my ass back there.”

“Shh,” says Annie, plastered against a wall. “We need to stay quiet before we get to the library.”

“We need to prepare for Frankie and Britta to be overwhelmed,” points out Abed. “Chang is crazy, but he’s a good general.”

“Do you think the twelve year olds are back?” asks Troy, shuddering.

Annie shushes them. “I hear voices ahead.”

“This is a lot of action,” Abed whispers to Troy, though he’s whispering to himself. “Usually at this point there’s a long journey sequence.”

Troy frowns, like he’s thinking about it, then gives Abed that look that Abed can’t decipher. “Well, there’s the spiders in _The_ _Hobbit_ ,” he says slowly, like he’s puzzling it out. Abed can tell he’s running through the fantasy movies he’s seen, but he’s not doing it efficiently the way Abed has learned to do. “Doesn’t the journey have bad guys?”

  
“You guys, shh,” hisses Annie.

  
“Yes,” says Abed, ignoring Annie, “but usually it comes as an ambush.”

“You guys,” whines Annie, and then turns the corner and gasps. “Britta?!”

Troy’s pretty happy to see Britta, honestly, if only because Britta’s the one he has the most normal relationship to, these days. Britta sees the three of them and waves happily, then her expression does that thing that looks like a record scratch, and she frowns and points an accusatory finger past Troy at Abed. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Shirley and Jeff?”

“They don’t really need my help,” says Abed. “I wasn’t able to predict Leonard’s ambush, anyway. Plus, I’m filling a specific role to allow us to recreate the fantasy trio archetype.”

“The what?” says Britta, and then she waves her arms to erase what she just said. “I don’t actually care.”

Abed shrugs. “Why did you stop answering your texts?”

“I think Annie’s Boobs stole my phone,” replies Britta, shrugging. “That’s Frankie’s theory, anyway.”

Abed does his finger gun. Troy frowns. “So you’re not actually in trouble?” he asks. “Jeff thought you guys were under siege.”

“We are,” says Britta. “I’m supposed to get to Jeff and Shirley to ask for backup.”

“Well, partner,” says Annie in a bad Texan accent until Abed gives her a look so cutting she sighs and drops it, “we’re your backup. Lead us to your castle.” She gives Abed a look herself at that, and they have some kind of silent conversation Troy’s never seen anyone else besides him have with Abed before, before Abed nods, indicating he’s satisfied with whatever they’ve decided on.

Troy looks at Britta; Britta looks completely unfazed by Annie and Abed’s super-psychosis. He thinks that’s the right word, anyway. Because LeVar always encouraged him to ask instead of being ashamed, he says, “Hey, is super-psychosis when you can almost read minds, but not actually?”

Abed looks at Troy with his head cocked, like he’s adding new information to his file on Troy, then says, “You mean pseudo-psychic?”

“Yeah,” says Troy, pleased, “that.”

“Anyways,” says Britta. “Here’s the problem.” She holds up her arm, which has a giant bruise. “I barely escaped with my life. There’s heavy fortification around the library, allowing no one in or out. We don’t have food _or_ water.” She pauses. “No, wait, we can go to the the water fountains and get water.”

“Well,” says Annie, “Shirley packed you guys some food and water anyway.”

Britta brightens up at that. 

“So we’re okay?” asks Troy.

“Oh yeah,” Britta says, remembering that they’re still in a war. “No one cares about this hallway right now because the cafeteria to the library is a dead zone, all due to us.”

“So wait,” says Abed, as they continue to walk towards the library. “Why didn’t Frankie just text?”

Britta frowns. “I promised I would send word myself.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Frankie would have just chosen the economical option,” points out Abed, matter-of-fact.

Britta slumps in that exaggerated way. “Fine,” she says, throwing her hands up. “You got me. I wanted to know the other side’s story. See if they were really in the right all along. Frankie kicked me out and they got annoyed and attacked me.” She folds her arms over her chest and glowers at Abed. “Happy?”

Everyone is silent for a moment.

“You’re the worst,” says Abed, but his heart’s not in the line; it looks like he’s only saying it because no one else will. “Take us to Frankie.”

“You’re not in charge of me.”

  
  
“Technically, narratively, my rank is higher than yours.”

  
  
“I don’t believe in rank,” huffs Britta. “It’s all a system—”

“Why are you still like this?” groans Troy, and earns a sharp look from Abed that says, _you’re not supposed to know Britta in this story._

Britta frowns at him, though, so Abed breaks character to say, “Mostly, I think it’s her being back at Greendale. Going to real grad school has actually informed her on a lot of issues and she’s become a much better activist.” He nods at Britta with some kind of respect. “It’s been pretty great character development.”

Britta crosses her arms and looks at Troy. “So there,” she says.

“Now, traitor,” says Abed, shifting into Princess-Abed, reaching to grab Britta’s arm, “You’re gonna lead us to Frankie.”

“Abed,” says Annie, “be gentle. That’s Britta’s bruised arm.”

“It’s not, actually,” says Britta, and Abed _and_ Annie both groan.

“I know, Britta!”

“Yeah, you would have winced,” adds Abed.

“It’s my job to be a chivalrous knight,” cries Annie. “I have to show that somehow!”

Troy looks between the three of them and shifts. Abed, noticing this, nods in approval, like Troy’s discomfort is very in-character. “You’re supposed to be an outsider,” whispers Abed to him as Britta leads Annie further down the hallway. “We haven’t got close in the narrative. Actually, we should probably bicker more.”

_Bicker more._ Got it. Troy nods, because he wants to remember, then furrows his eyebrows and scowls. “No, we should try to get along,” he says, trying to be as oppositional as possible.

Abed gives him a double thumbs up, then settles back into character. “You’re annoying,” he says with anger dripping from his tone, but his eyes flick to Troy’s mouth with purpose.

It makes Troy’s brain want to cry if he thinks too hard about how he feels about _that._ “Well… you’re annoying,” he says.

“Abed’s winning,” calls Annie from where she’s at.

“I know,” says Troy, but really it’s only “I kn—” before beanbags start whizzing over his head.

“Duck!” cries Abed, pulling out his slingshot. Annie raises her pillow shield and harder-than-it-should-be pillow sword thing and steps in front of Troy. Britta grabs her own pillow, a smaller throw pillow, and brandishes it as menacingly as she can, trying to circle around Troy, who _still doesn’t have a weapon._

“Guys,” says Troy, holding up his hands, as another bean bag just misses Annie. “Guys,” he repeats, whimpering.

Abed reaches into his bag and pushes a pillow into Troy’s chest without looking. “That’s twice now I’ve saved you,” he says as Princess-Abed in that low, I-hate-to-love-you way.

“Shut up,” hisses Troy. “On three, I’m gonna charge. Can you distract them with your slingshot?”

Abed nods. “Let’s do it,” he says. “Three.”

“Two.” Annie and Britta are circling closer towards the bean bags flying in their direction. One hits Britta in the chest; she wheezes.

“One.”

At once, Abed begins to unload beanbags rapid-fire towards their assailants, who look like Starburns and...Vicki, maybe, while Troy lets out his fiercest cry and runs towards them, swinging his pillow wildly. Annie charges beside him, also screaming.

Beanbags sail over their heads as he dives towards them; he’s not sure if it’s the screaming or Abed’s onslaught of beanbags, but he makes it to a distance where he and Annie can start pummeling Starburns and Vicki. With several well aimed smacks, he and Annie hit them until the two lie on the ground, defeated.

Abed picks up their beanbags, fills his bag, and nods to Troy, eyebrow raised.

“We should tie them up,” says Annie. “Anyone have any rope?”

(No one has rope, so they leave them behind, Britta clutching her midsection as they walk towards the forts).

They take a pit-stop to snack on energy bars from Shirley and curl around a radiator, as the school’s getting cold (“Your people should probably fix that,” Abed says, waving his hand at Troy, and though the wording is in character, he’s surprised to find the emotion behind it is his own).

“It’s nice to be back, you guys,” says Britta after a while, leaning against the wall of a classroom.

Annie makes a noise of agreement.

“It’s kind of scary how intense Greendale students have gotten,” says Troy. “Like, they’re using some really painful weapons this time around. We were pretty reasonable on our rules.” He glances at Abed, and feels his stomach twist in that weird way, like he ate too much ice cream or old candy bars.

Abed shrugs, still in character; his face is still too full of emotion. “You’re just annoyed because you’re too slow,” he says as Princess-Abed, teasing.

Troy rolls his eyes and slides into his role. “I’m just letting you have some wins.”

“Sure,” says Princess-Abed.

Annie looks between them, then nods at Troy. “You were good out there, but your form could be better. Wanna spar?”

He looks at Abed with a ‘do I have to’ expression, and Abed drops his persona to give Troy a blank nod, which he hopes Troy remembers means, ‘it’s good for the story’ in Abed. He must remember, because he gets up and starts hitting Annie with a pillow, and overall the effect is very ironic, since there’s little form to a pillow fight, but he can tell Abed appreciates the whole thing.

He thinks the irony really makes this plotline work. At least, he hopes so.

After some time, they get up again and Britta tries—and fails, somewhat—to explain the layout of the forts. Troy sees Abed grow impatient with her inability to perform her spy role, but the information she does give is passable. Annie manages to find them blankets to wear as cloaks, and they sneak down the hall towards one of the siege camps.

They each flatten against the wall with Britta in the lead. She holds up her hand as a band of students pass by, each in similar armor to Annie’s. Troy’s eyebrows go up and he gives Annie two thumbs up.

She shushes him even though he hasn’t said anything, then focuses on the scene at hand. Once they pass, Britta takes them down the hall in the opposite direction.

It goes like this for a while; Britta’s in the lead and Annie takes up the rear. Abed inspects Troy closely the whole time, and Troy can’t decide how he feels about _that._ He can feel Abed’s eyes on him; it’s been a while since Troy was under this kind of study, especially since Abed’s the only person he knows (the only person smart enough, really) to be able to be aware of his surroundings _and_ pay attention to Troy.

Either way. They inch, and it’s kinda boring, but scary, too? Like, Troy’s brain is crying from nothing to do but also crying because he doesn’t want to get hit with a pole wrapped in pillows (which he _definitely_ saw that last batch of guards sporting, which makes Frankie and Britta, like, 1000% more badasses).

Seeing his boredom, Abed takes Troy’s hand and squeezes it.

It surprises him, because Abed doesn’t initiate a lot of physical contact, ever. His hand in Troy’s is cool (because Abed runs cold) and calloused, and it’s been a while since they’ve held hands, and Troy suddenly realizes he...kind of misses it?

“Hey, pea-brains,” says Princess-Abed, still in character, which makes Troy’s brain a little more confused because is Abed holding his hand or Abed-as-a-mean-but-hot-princess holding his hand? He doesn’t want to think about it too hard or else he’ll start crying confused tears. “I bet I can make less feathers float up when we walk than you can.”

It’s a stupid game, but he can’t help but say, “You’re on” almost immediately.

It totally works, too: they’re completely silent, shuffling their feet as little as possible. Suddenly his brain is working again and he’s entertained as they quietly make their way to the library.

The moment they get to the entrance, though, Britta stops them and says, “There’s about four people guarding the entrance. We’re going to have to take them down.”

  
  
Troy glances over; Abed already has his slingshot out. “On three,” says Troy, looking at the group and brandishing his pillow. “After this, I’m really gonna need to find a shield like Annie.”

A bunch of bruises later, Frankie slams the door of the library shut and says, “You guys are idiots,” which, to Abed, is exactly what her character should say at this moment. He’s pleased.

“Well, we brought you food, since you’re running low on rations,” says Troy, motioning at Britta and Annie.

Frankie frowns. “This school is insane. We’ve been here for three hours. We’re not ‘low on supplies’.”

  
“You don’t have food,” points out Britta. “Just because you aren’t feeling it yet doesn’t mean you aren’t low on supplies.”

“Whatever,” says Frankie, shrugging.

After some quips and snarking, they return to the main plot. Frankie lays out for them the difficulties of getting to the Dean, which include getting through the forts stationed around the library. Apparently the Dean is being held hostage by a number of guards and Chang, who is acting as a fake evil king who really, really wants priority registration, because he’s _still_ a student, for some unknown reason.

It’s getting towards dusk at Greendale, but the lights haven’t flickered on yet, and it casts long shadows in the halls. The trees outside are dark and foreboding, appropriately forming an appropriately frightening forest beyond their eyeline. They’re back to sneaking; Troy takes Abed’s hand as they quietly move through feathers littering the hallway.

Britta stays behind, and surprisingly, so does Annie, to help Frankie properly barricade the library.

Troy is obviously uncomfortable without Annie. He looks to Abed and says, “What about the trio?”

“In part, she’s a mentor figure in the trio,” says Abed. “Eventually, you have to leave her behind to finish your journey. Also, Annie’s character is bound to protect Greendale, which is part of the reason she fits the knight trope so well. She sees that the library is under duress and believes you and I can handle saving the Dean.”

“Craig,” corrects Annie gently. “Jeff’s been trying to get us to call them Craig.”

Abed snaps his fingers. “Craig,” he repeats.

“Troy,” says Annie, and pulls off her pillow-shield-thing. “It’s possible you might see more of those wooden poles wrapped in pillows, which could really hurt.” (“They do,” interjects Britta under her breath.) “Take this, so you can be safe.”

“Annie, are you—”

“I insist,” she says, and begins to strap it onto Troy’s arm. She gives him a soft kiss on the cheek, then steps back. “You’re our only hope.”

“That’s Star Wars,” says Abed, but pulls Troy along with him.

“I’m not perfect, Abed,” she says, behind them, but there’s no bite to it.

Either way, it ends up being the two of them, holding hands and inching their way down the halls. They’ve made it to the administration building, but by now they can hear the chatter of other students down the hall. Troy sucks in a breath beside him; their phone lights cause the shadows to flicker like torchlight.

Or maybe there’s a bulb flickering in the other room—Abed’s not sure.

He raises a finger to his mouth; Troy nods. He can hear them chatting about what classes they’ll take in the fall if he leans closer, but they stick to the edges of the room and Abed only gets bits and pieces—“Ladders” and “four day weekend” and “requirements”—as they tip-toe across the hall.

Troy’s foot comes hard down against something that looks like a piece of broken tile, which cracks further noisily.

The voices suddenly stop.

Abed and Troy freeze, plastering themselves against the wall and wait. 

“What was that?” says a voice down the hall.

“You’re paranoid, shut up,” another voice responds.

“I just want to win, asshole,” the first voice retorts.

The argument begins to echo throughout the hall, and it seems the noise itself—or perhaps just suspicion—is momentarily forgotten. Troy heaves a heavy, but silent breath, and they continue forward.

At the door to the Dean there are two guards, two students Abed doesn’t recognize. He looks at Troy and readies his slingshot; Troy nods and raises his own pillow. In a deft motion, Abed fires two bean bags, which hit each student square in the temple and they hiss and slide to the ground, the universal pillow-fight move for “surrender.”

“Rope?” whispers Troy.

Abed frowns back, trying to emulate Legolas’ disappointed face. “You’re supposed to have rope.”

“But I didn’t bring anything with me! You should have reminded me!” hisses Troy.

“Shh, pea brain,” says Abed as his princess character, and pulls out the two student’s shoe laces. “We’ll have to make do with this.”

Troy gives Abed a look, that same look Abed can’t place, and then grins. “Clever,” he says. “That’s three times now you’ve saved us.”

Abed falls back into his role and smirks. “You’re keeping count.”

“Can you two stop flirting?” hisses one of the tied up students.

Troy pushes his pillow into their face; it flops over a little undramatically, but it seems to do the trick. “Shut up. Where’s the Dean?”

“In there?” says the tied up student, looking at the Dean’s office.

Troy and Abed exchange glances and shrug. Checks out. They do their handshake and open the door to the administration offices.

The moment they’ve entered the room, the door clicks behind them and Abed suddenly stops. He holds up his hand, then tries the doorknob. “It’s locked from the outside,” he says, matter-of-fact, face expressionless, but Troy can tell he’s inwardly freaking out. Outside, the two guards they tied up start screaming.

“Shit,” says Troy. “Shit, fuck.” And then he grabs Abed’s hand and tugs him towards the Dean’s office.

The Dean is there, of course, curled into a ball and shaking. “Dean,” says Troy, looking out over his shoulder nervously. “Craig, we’ve come to rescue you. But we’ve got to get ready. I’m not sure how much time we have.” Abed cocks his head beside him, looking confused and nervous.

The Dean lifts their head slowly. “Troy? Abed?”

“Come on,” insists Troy. “We’ve got to go.”

  
“How’re we going to…” says the Dean—Craig—as they look between the two of them and begin to uncurl. “The door’s locked from the outside.”

  
  
Troy glances at Abed, who’s pointer finger is up as if about to ask the same thing. “I have a plan,” says Troy. “But we have to get out of this room, fast.” And he begins to pull out the screwdriver he has in his bag and unscrew the vents. “Look,” he says, “the Air Conditioning Repair School—”

He’s cut off by the sound of the door jiggling, and shouts.

“Come on, come on,” he says, mostly to the vent he’s unscrewing. 

“Troy…” says Craig, “hurry.”

“I’m hurrying!” he whisper-shouts, pulling out the third screw. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  
  
“Troy,” says Abed, warningly. “They’re almost at Craig’s room.” His voice hitches on _Craig._

“It’s so weird to call you that,” Troy says to the Dean, and then whoops as he pulls the final screw out and shoves the vent out of the way. “Okay. Okay okay okay. We’ve got to go.”

Craig—the Dean—stares at the vent disapprovingly, then begins to crawl inside.

“Troy, we’re not all going to make it,” says Abed, keeping his eye on the outside through the window in the Dean’s door. “But I can hold them off. Get the Dean to safety.”

“Abed—”

Abed pauses, and turns to Troy, cradling Troy’s face in his hand. For a moment, Troy’s not sure if it’s Abed or if it’s this princess character who’s about to kiss him, and that kills him, for some reason, not knowing. He leans in, but Dean Pelton shouts, “Troy! Come on!” before his lips can touch Abed’s, and he jerks away.

“Stay safe,” he whispers into Abed’s ear.

“See you on the other side, pea-brain,” says Princess-Abed, and then they do their handshake, and Troy crawls into the vent.

The Air Conditioning Repair School, despite Troy’s best efforts, is still pretty creepy. As they crawl through the vents, whispers echo around them, giving directions through gusts of wind and the gusts’ whispered names. _“South,”_ hisses one wind at one point, and Dean Pelton whimpers. Troy takes it they don’t like the Air Conditioning Repair School either.

Despite that, it works: Dean Pelton isn’t great at their North from South, so Troy has to translate into right and left, but he figures that just falls into Abed’s Chosen One role for him, so he lets it slide.

Within five minutes, they crawl out of the vent in the cafeteria, which Jeff and Shirley are crowded around, tense with pillows.

Jeff relaxes, and raises a hand. The pillows all drop to the ground. “It’s Troy and Craig!” he calls, and—surprisingly—hugs Dean Pelton. Shirley and the odd student who seems to have joined their side _hurrah_ at this, lifting the pillows to throw them into the air as means of celebration.

Troy nods to the crowd.

He realizes then that Jeff is still looking at the vent, puzzled. He pauses. “Where’s Abed?” asks Jeff lowly.

  
Troy feels his heart seize; maybe it’s because of the almost-kiss, maybe it’s because he’s not sure if Abed’s okay. “He didn’t make it,” he whispers, tearing up.

Jeff nods solemnly, and is silent for a moment. Eventually, he says “Shirley, we’re probably gonna need another bag of frozen peas in half an hour or so.”

Actually, Troy finds out, in the time they were gone, Annie’s fixed a lot of problems. Using Jeff’s magical speech abilities and Britta with a little bit of mustard, the three of them have organized an uprising against Chang and an agreement to make a pillow fort without anyone winning, using an argument that at this rate, no one’s gonna win, and at least let’s get Greendale a world record.

Abed limps out after a while, and Troy runs to hug him. They do their handshake, then collapse onto each other, smiling. Neither one of them mention their almost-kiss; Troy decides it’s like all the other kisses they’ve shared for Abed’s movies, where they were just kisses for plot and not for emotion. “We should rewatch all of Lord of the Rings after this,” Abed tells him, matter-of-fact. “And maybe the Black Cauldron.”

“Actually,” says Troy. “I’m kind of over this fantasy stuff. We’ve been doing it a lot lately. Maybe Pirates of the Carribean?”

“I think it’s because big, long, sad journeys are very plot-relevant right now,” replies Abed. “It’s all been very _nostos_ of us.”

“You mean _nosotros_ ,” says Troy, and Abed raises an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he says, proud of himself, “I picked up some Spanish when we sailed around South America. Turns out Señor Chang really, really doesn’t know anything. _Pero puedo hablar en español ahora._ Isn’t that awesome?”

Abed does a little finger gun and pew-pew to indicate that Troy is, in fact, awesome. “But no,” says Abed, “ _nostos_ comes from Ancient Greek. It means ‘homecoming’, and it’s an important genre. That’s kind of what this has been for the two of us, this whole time: a _nostos_ back to Greendale.”

“Huh,” says Troy. “Cool.”

“Cool cool cool.”

“In the meantime,” says Jeff, obviously pleased with himself as he has saved Greendale from a lot of property damage, “let’s go get a drink.”

They do. Troy opts not to drink and to be the designated driver, if only to drive Jeff’s cool car again. He sits with Abed in companionable silence as they watch the rest of the group get varying degrees of shitfaced. Abed watches Jeff and Britta get into an argument, Frankie and Annie plan around the damages that _have_ been created, and Chang and the Dean make up, again.

Daybreak’s playing over the speakers; he’s pretty sure Britta did that for him, which makes him exceptionally pleased. All in all, it’s a good wrap-up to an episode.

Beside him, though, Troy starts to fidget. It begins with irregular tapping on the bar beside him, then progresses to moving his knee up and down. Abed’s been a little puzzled by Troy’s behavior lately, seeing as many of his insecurities appear to no longer bother him to the same extent. That being said, Troy’s exhibiting age-old signs of nervousness, and, if this were a couple years ago, Abed would have thought this meant Troy was about to start shouting.

“You’re upset,” he says.

“What? Psh. I’m not _upset_ ,” says Troy, in that way that means he is upset.

“Friends don’t lie,” says Abed.

“I’m not lying,” cries Troy, his voice pitching too high.

“Your knee won’t stop bouncing,” replies Abed, ticking off his fingers, “and you’re tapping incessantly. Your tone became louder and more high-pitched when I pointed out you seemed upset, which tends to indicate that someone is upset even if they say they aren’t, and you’re frowning a lot.”

“I’m not—I’m not upset,” says Troy, his voice purposefully lower and face purposefully blank. “I’m just. I just. You left.”

“What?” Abed cocks his head.

“This morning. You left early.” Troy’s frowning again. “You left before I came back. Even though you told me to do whatever I want.” Abed sighs. He’d hoped the Greendale shenanigans would have made Troy forget. “And,” says Troy, “looking back on, you totally had time to climb into the vent. But you didn’t.”

He pauses, and then exhales, like he’s figured something out. “You’re angry with me. About the Air Conditioning Repair School.”

Abed pauses, and says, “I think I’m jealous.”

“Why?”

“They got to save you. You went to them first instead of visiting me in LA.”

“Abed, I—” Troy swallows, thickly. “I came to Greendale first. Not the Air Conditioning Repair School. My whole life was here in Colorado! You’re the one who left it!”

“I had to move on,” says Abed. “Are you mad I left?”

“No,” says Troy, and this time, does not exhibit any signs of lying. “But I’m mad you left this morning. Not upset. Mad.”

“Oh,” says Abed, quiet.

“I don’t get why you didn’t just tell me not to go. If you had told me no, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Abed sits on that for a while, and then sorts his own feelings. Troy lets him do it; Abed can tell that he’s giving Abed the space Abed usually gives Troy to word his own thoughts. “I guess I’m scared,” says Abed, after some time. “I think that’s what’s happening.” His own leg begins to shake. He wills it to stop. “I can’t predict what you’re going to do anymore. I liked the pillow fight. I knew what was going to happen. But in real life, outside of Greendale, I don’t know how to make you happy.”

  
  
“I can just tell you,” says Troy, sounding suddenly hollow. “You don’t have to make me happy to make me stay.”

  
  
Abed looks at him for a long time. “I want you to be happy,” he says, eventually. “I don’t want to make you leave again.”

“You can’t,” whispers Troy. “I have a _buttload_ of money now. I don’t have any reason to go anywhere anymore. We can be Troy-and-Abed again.”

  
  
Abed thinks about mentioning Los Angeles, but decides against it. It would just cause too much stress on their already fragile relationship. It didn’t need to be plot-relevant yet. “You left to become Troy-without-Abed,” he says, slowly. “I don’t understand. Doesn’t this undermine your character development?”

“No,” replies Troy. “I have a better sense of self. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.”

“What do you want to do with your life?”

“Is stay-at-home dad lame?” asks Troy, and then grins, shrugging. “I’m thinking about getting a beard.”

“You mean, a girlfriend.”

“No, growing one,” says Troy. “Why would I mean a girlfriend?”

“You’re gay,” points out Abed, and then worries that this is one of the things Troy doesn’t want him to say aloud, but Troy doesn’t hiss _Abed_ the way people do when Abed says things he’s not supposed to. “Why would you grow a beard? Don’t you think that’s very Evil Troy of you?”

Troy shakes his head. “No goatee. Just a beard to indicate I’m older and wiser.”

Abed nods. “A cheap narrative device,” he says, happily.

“That looks awesome,” adds Troy, and they do their handshake. In the background, Shirley crows as she beats Jeff and Britta at foosball. 

That night, Annie joins them in a nightgown and they watch as many fantasy films as they can before they all pass out in a tired knot on the couch. Troy wakes up with Abed curled against his chest and Annie using his thigh as a pillow. As far as mornings go, it’s the best he’s had in a long time.

He opens his phone to check his email: there’s one from LeVar about life in California, which Troy reads happily and responds with one describing all the Greendale shenanigans. As he types on his phone, Annie stirs and looks up at him sleepily, her hair a mess.

“I’m gonna make Special Drink this morning,” she says, “since Abed won’t let us put the air conditioning on and it’s too warm for hot chocolate.”

Abed, beside him, opens his eyes as if he’s been awake this whole time. That’s probably true. Abed has never slept very much. Troy’s always thought it was awesome: he’s pretty much never had to be awake without Abed. “Special Drink?” he says, uncurling from Troy’s chest (less awesome, for reasons Troy can’t place).

“And Lucky Charms,” adds Annie, sounding defeated. “You’re going to get cavities, Abed.”

“You read my grocery list every week,” replies Abed. “You know I’m eating healthier.”

“And friends don’t lie,” she says, pointing an accusing finger at him as she untangles herself from Troy and stretches, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail and out of her face. She then moves towards the kitchen. “I could also make pancakes, if you guys want.”

“Annie,” Troy says very seriously, “I missed you every day while I was on that boat.”

“Aw, Troy,” she says happily. “I love you guys so much. Virginia is fun, but it’s not the same.”

Abed nods. “When we all have more money, we have to visit you.”

She giggles and turns her attention to the stove. “You know, tomorrow we have to go to Britta’s protest.”

“Yeah,” says Troy. “I don’t get that. What are we protesting?”

Abed follows her into the kitchen. “It’s Britta,” he says, matter-of-fact. “We’re protesting ten things at once. Shirley got her to narrow down the theme to the problems with celebrating our independence day without critical thinking, but even then that’s a pretty broad theme. Annie’s holding a sign-making party here today for it.”

Troy nods. “Awesome.” He does his handshake with Abed. 

“But what I don’t understand is why you’re helping Dean Pelton organize the Fourth of July parade anyway.”

“Abed,” Annie hisses desperately, in that way that means he’s shared too much information. 

“Annie,” gasps Troy.

“Troy,” says Abed, so as not to be left out. Both Annie and Troy look at him. He shrugs.

“It’s because Dean Pelton asked me to! I just wanted to go to a picnic with my friends,” Annie says desperately.

“Why didn’t you plan a summer picnic?” asks Abed, grabbing milk from the fridge and pouring it into two cups to make Special Drink.

Annie gasps. “Abed, you’re a genius.” She begins to rush off to start emailing, but then stops and turns to the kitchen counter, where she’s assembled all the ingredients for pancakes. She pauses, stops, and returns to the counter. “Remind me to email the Dean after pancakes, okay?”

Abed makes a finger gun at her.

“Wait,” says Troy. “I’m confused. Are we celebrating the fourth of July or not?”

“No,” says Abed. “I just stopped a potential conflict between celebrating and not celebrating. Britta’s gotten pretty convincing. Turns out, there’s a lot wrong with this country.”

About three hours later, Annie has cleared the living room and covered the floor in newspaper. “This isn’t our apartment,” she reminds everyone regularly, “so keep your signs as clean as possible!” She has several paints, cardboard and poster boards of different sizes, handouts of different issues people might be interested in as well as slogans, and stickers. She’s also organized a picnic/barbeque at the local park and managed to secure the public pool only for the event (with some threats over the phone that made _Troy_ scared).

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Annie,” says Jeff, and his tone says, _That’s an understatement_.

She brandishes the glitter over her sign, which says something about police violence. It’s a little hard to see because she hasn’t finished shaking the glitter over the glue. She’s got the crazy look in her eye, though, the one Jeff used to get about Rick and the one Abed gets if someone mentions Nicholas Cage too many times in one sentence.

Troy returns to his own sign— _he’s_ writing a slogan about earthquake relief in Puerto Rico, because he met some really cool people from there while sailing, and it turns out the US _does_ suck.

(When he told Britta he had an idea without having to be fed one, she’d gotten so excited Troy’d been worried her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head. He’s glad to surprise her, but he probably won’t do it again. Her face when he’d told her would probably haunt him in his nightmares for the rest of forever).

Abed, beside him, is writing a sign in defense of his dad’s falafel place. “He’ll be happy to see it,” Abed informs Troy, and Troy nods.

All in all, it’s pretty awesome. Shirley brings brownies, which are the _best_ , and they play Roxanne, and Annie yells at people for getting paint on the floor, and Chang gets more paint on himself than on anything else. Britta spends some of the time sulking about Frankie helping the Dean organize _their_ thing and not _hers,_ but for the most part they just make signs and laugh and let Jeff pretend he’s annoyed with them for a couple hours, just like old times.

Every once in a while, Troy catches Abed’s gaze wandering towards him, and Troy feels some sort of squishiness in his heart. He keeps getting distracted by Abed’s long fingers, the curve of his neck, the precise way he goes about making his sign and telling jokes, the way he watches everyone without their noticing—

He wonders if it’s really been that long, because seeing Abed out of the corner of his eye still feels like a miracle.

After a while, once everyone’s made their signs and it’s kind of derailed into dancing and drinking and Annie making sure paint doesn’t get on the floor while Shirley helps her clean frantically, Troy sidles up to Abed, who’s mostly just watching the chaos. “Hey,” he says. “After we fight as a group, and then after Jeff fixes our fight, do you want to go to the mall and narrate people’s lives as they walk by?”

Abed turns and perks up, or at least the way Abed perks up: a small eyebrow quirk, his fingers barely twitching. “Yeah,” he says, and takes Troy’s hand in his own.

“Cool,” says Troy.

“Cool cool cool.”

Abed likes rules; he likes familiarity and routine and predictability. It’s why he’s started to categorize his life into a fanfiction, because those rules appear to better fit his life at the time being. It’s why he’s started up another journal to compare and contrast New Troy—who, he’s decided, is different from Clone Troy—and Old Troy. 

Annie catches him doing it, but doesn’t say anything to Troy. She gets it; she’s like him, he’s discovered, in so many ways: the obsessive chronicling, researching, detailing. What they chronicle and research and detail will always be different, but Annie understands the nature of Abed as Abed will always understand the nature of Annie.

“How’s your fanfic hypothesis, partner?” she asks, sliding next to him. She’s trying to look at his notebook.

He covers it with his arm. “More accurate than the sitcom set of rules,” he says. 

She nods. “Hey, Abed,” she says, slow, and then frowns. “Listen, about the air conditioning…”

“It’s hot, I know.” Abed shrugs.

“It’s just. Pierce was in a cult, and you still like lava lamps.”

“That cult objectively sucks,” replies Abed, finally looking at her. “It was mostly a scam. It made Pierce happy, so I didn’t care about it, but it made money off of its members. It didn’t care about them. The Air Conditioning Repair School _cares_ about Troy; he’s not just a member, he’s their messiah. That’s the problem. They think they’re entitled to him.”

“And we don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Think we’re entitled to Troy?” She’s studying him now in between trying to peak glances at his notebook. She’s leaning closer to look at it, and she smells like Annie; different shampoo, maybe, but that comforting smell that Abed has always liked. He misses seeing her every day, even when she’s annoying, like now.

“We are entitled to Troy,” replies Abed. “Troy chose us over them.”

“But now Troy’s choosing both.”

He frowns. “I just don’t have the rules down. If I can predict what he wants…”

She stops him by holding up her hand. Surprisingly, she looks like she doesn’t even care about the notebook anymore. “Abed, that’s not why you make him happy.” 

“You don’t know that.”

She scoffs. “Just because I don’t obsessively journal about the study group—and I _could_ —doesn’t mean I don’t understand what’s going on. Remember how you used to track my period? And Britta’s? And Shirley’s? While it made us happy in the short term, long term we were uncomfortable with it, and Shirley avoided you for weeks. You make all of us happy when you’re trying to be you, not trying to figure out the rules.”

He raises his pointer finger to indicate he disagrees. “But then I make mistakes.”

“Yeah, but so does _Jeff_ and Jeff probably understands how to charm his way out of everything.”

He considers this. “Troy said something similar, but not in so many words.”

Annie laughs, and leans forward to hug him. “We both know Troy isn’t really built for words.”

Abed nods at that, and wraps his own arms around Annie. She stiffens for a moment, then relaxes into his embrace. “You’re a really good hugger, Abed,” she whispers, and gives him a kiss on his cheek. They stay like that for a while, partially because Abed finds it comforting, and partially because he can tell Annie needs the hug, too.

It’s hard moving so far away from home on your own.

That night, Troy follows Abed into his room without question. Neither of them mention it as they strip and pretend not to look at each other when they really are, but Annie knocks on the door before they drift off and says, “good night,” in that fond voice she used to use when they were roommates, so they both decide that it’s just normal and right they sleep in the same bed.

And if they stay entangled a little longer in the morning than they should?

  
  
That’s just what best friends do.

The protest is just the six of them, but the parade is only the Dean, Frankie, and four or five Greendale students, so Troy thinks it’s fine. Britta’s pleased, anyway. Troy watches as she and Frankie argue bitterly, and how Jeff slouches against a tree and pretends not to check out the Dean in that outfit (Troy’s given up on calling them Craig), and how they all shout different chants at the same time, and it’s so impossibly _them_ and _Greendale_ that he catches Abed’s gaze and, without saying anything, they do their handshake by slapping their signs together.

The day after that, Annie drags them all to the park. She and Frankie have organized blankets and Shirley has brought food and Britta brings booze in very obvious brown paper bags. Jeff stands by the barbecue for the aesthetic but refuses to use it, while the Dean holds up their fingers and frames him leaning against it.

It’s a pretty hot July day, so most of the time is spent eating strawberries in the shade. Troy and Abed still hold hands, because that’s what they _do,_ and when Troy’s hand gets a little sweaty, Abed pulls out a washtowel from his messenger bag and hands it over wordlessly, which is what they used to do in the summers before Troy went sailing.

The Dean ends up sitting with them, eying dogs and their walkers with a certain kind of jealousy. “Do you guys think I could handle a dog?” they ask wistfully, watching a woman walk by with her dalmatian. 

“No,” says Abed, while Troy says, “Uhhhh.” Jeff makes a noncommittal noise beside them, but he’s on his phone, so it’s possible he’s not listening to anything.

“Alright,” replies the Dean, sounding offended. “No vote of confidence from you guys. I could be a good dad, you know.”

“Sure,” says Troy, while Abed makes a disappointed sound in the back of his throat.

“Oh,” says the Dean, dejected, and they sit in awkward silence for a while.

Eventually Annie walks over and sighs happily, seeing all three of them sitting together. “You guys,” she says, smiling, “This has been the best week ever. I missed everyone so much.”

Abed snaps at her, mostly to do a finger gun in her direction. “You should spend more summers in LA,” he says. “We could do all the movie things.” Troy swivels, confused by that nonspecificity, but then realizes that Abed really means _all_ of them, and that’s why he hasn’t specified, and then his head begins to ache with the concept of it.

“Dude,” he whispers, “That’s a lot of things.”

  
  
Annie folds her arms, getting the crazy Annie look. “You don’t think I can do it?”

Troy looks between Annie to Abed and back to Annie. “It sounds _awesome_ ,” he says. “Can I watch?”

  
  
Abed suddenly smiles. “I forgot the three of us are back together,” he says, bumping against Troy’s shoulder. “You can be in our scenes. And I can film.”

“You did say you missed filming,” exclaims Troy. “Annie, do you have a pencil? We should write down a list _right now_!”

“I already have one,” says Abed, because of course he does, and Troy’s whole heart explodes hearing him.

“Of course you do, Abed,” says Jeff, who has been listening after all. He begins to put his phone into his bag, and makes his way to his feet. “Listen, it’s nice to hear you all tell Craig not to adopt a dog, and all, but it’s hot, and I want to go swimming.” He pulls off his shirt, and Troy snorts, because of course.

“You just want to be shirtless,” Britta calls from another blanket.

“Cool,” says Abed, ignoring Britta. “You want to go swimming, Troy?”

They do their handshake, which means, _yes, I do_ , and Annie says, “Oooh, are we going swimming?” and then the whole group is talking about it, except for Britta and Frankie, who promise to watch everyone’s stuff, which is only comforting because Frankie’s also looking over everything.

(Abed’s pretty sure Britta forgot a bathing suit, but that’s none of his concern).

Annie lathers on exactly three layers of sunscreen and makes Abed do her back, twice. She then insists that he should put on some, and pulls out the kind that doesn’t smell weird before he can object. Troy watches the two of them with some fondness, pretending he’s not really looking at Abed’s slender form, hidden by a rash guard, and long fingers working sunscreen into Annie’s back.

Shirley steps close to him and sighs. “You know,” she says, “That I support you two boys through anything.”

  
  
Troy doesn’t know, actually, and he’s kind of distracted because Abed has noticed him looking, and so he panics and gives him two thumbs up, shucks his shirt, and takes a running jump into the pool, ignoring Shirley all the while.

The water is cold; it’s the perfect kind of shock to his system as he resurfaces and gasps for air. He shakes his head and treads water, then looks at Annie’s disappointed (and wet) face, Abed’s approving one, Shirley’s displeased one, Jeff’s equally displeased one if only because Troy’s ruining his hair, and the Dean’s singular raised eyebrow. “Nice,” calls Abed, returning the two thumbs up. “But if you did more of a cannonball shape, I bet we could get the splash zone radius even higher.”

“Dude,” says Troy, swimming over to the edge of the pool. Abed walks over to the edge, understanding that Troy means to do their handshake. They do, two beats over their chests and with their palms, but Troy grabs Abed’s hand and pulls him in with him.

For a moment there is silence as everyone blinks, shocked. Annie rushes over to where Abed is under the water.

Then Abed resurfaces, and gives Troy a pleased nod. “Nice,” he says. “It’s not a pool scene if someone doesn’t get pushed in.”

“Technically I pulled you in,” says Troy, and everyone releases their sighs of relief. 

Jeff walks down the steps of the pool, too cool to jump in after them. Annie sees this, blows a raspberry in his direction, and jumps towards the pool just as Troy begins to climb out. “What do you think?” says Troy, standing up and beginning to stretch. Water droplets land on his calves as Annie does her cannonball. “If I do a further running jump, will that help?” He begins to back up.

Abed makes the face that means he’s doing mental calculations to try and figure out the best way to do a cannonball until Shirley says, “I _know_ you don’t want to splash me.”

They both give her equally guilty glances, and Troy says, “I guess,” disappointed.

“It’s also not safe to run on wet concrete, Troy,” chimes in Annie, resurfacing from under the water.

“We can still do breath holding competitions and stuff,” says Abed, looking at Troy.

Troy brightens up. “We could reenact the underwater episode of Inspector Spacetime?”

“What a brilliant idea, Reggie!” calls Inspector Spacetime Abed in that British accent. “We must hurry. We don’t have time.”

“You don’t mean,” says Troy, “...the space?”

The smile Abed gives him his blinding: his whole chest opens up in a way he hadn’t expected, the way he’d felt every time he’d done anything with Abed before the boat trip. In a lot of ways, he feels exactly the same about Abed—Abed’s still the magical elf-like man who makes his life more magical. 

It’s just, feeling that feeling, seeing Abed with his wet hair plastered to the side of his face and smiling at him as _Abed_ and the way his rash guard sticks to his chest so that Troy can see the outline of all of him—Troy knows the name of that feeling he’s been feeling all along, for years and years and years and years.

“To the time booth!” shouts Troy as Reggie, suddenly full of _love,_ and not even surprised by it, and he wades through the water after Abed.

Troy has a lot of expressions; it’s been a couple days, but Abed’s getting better at figuring out some of the new ones. Today, Troy pulls out his favorite, one of the oldest: the look of when Abed does something fun and cool, like they’re about to do something super weird together. It’s the look of him like that, eyes soft and mouth quirked up and lips slightly parted, that makes Abed’s stomach react the same way it used to.

It’s what Abed identified too late as the look of unconditional love, a look he sometimes gets from each member of the study group and Save Greendale Committee and once, the Dean. It’s his favorite when he gets it from Troy, though.

It makes him want to rebuild everything in Troy’s name. 

He spends the rest of the day more or less incredibly pleased by it, by the fact they’re still Troy-and-Abed, even if there’s a learning curve. Abed realizes he’d probably keep journaling and plotting and planning and memorizing until he could figure out Troy the same way he used to, anyway, so it’s probable that in any timeline where Troy returns they’d become Troy-and-Abed again.

Once they’re done with the picnic and swimming, Frankie drives Abed back to the AirBnB; Troy and Annie go in Jeff’s car so that Troy can get some more of his stuff. She taps the wheel thoughtfully as they drive through Greendale. “You know,” she says, slow, careful, to Abed in the back seat, “I get it now. Why everyone in the group kept talking about him after he left.”

“He keeps us from the darkest timeline,” says Abed, because she’ll know what he means.

She nods. “But nothing can keep Greendale from disaster,” she says grimly, and he knows she’s thinking about the documentaries.

“It’s good you know our history now.”

She laughs.

“Also, I know Troy won’t ask for help, because he thinks he needs to properly lead them, but you should offer him some advice on making the Air Conditioning Repair School a normal school.” He frowns and looks out the window. He hears her suck in a breath, slow and measured, calculated.

“Honestly,” she says, “the day he mentioned it, I started writing up some plans.”

“Cool,” he replies, pleased. “Cool cool cool.”

When he gets home, Troy realizes he needs to email LeVar Burton, so he settles on the couch and starts typing out an email. He types it out pretty quickly, the gist being that LeVar was right and also remember when he had that crisis and came out to him about a year and a half into their trip and he thinks it might be reciprocated, but it’s always been unspoken between them, so what should he do, but LeVar doesn’t respond right away, so he locks himself in the bathroom and calls Shirley because of what she said to him at the pool.

“Shirley,” he tells her, “I’m gay.”

“I know, sweetheart,” she responds. “I’ve seen the way you look at Abed.”

He pauses, then, tightening his grip on the phone. “You knew?!” he cries. “Why didn’t someone tell me?!”

Her silence is long, and almost as loud as his own shout. “Troy,” she says, after a while, “We did tell you. Admittedly, I wasn’t always very supportive while we were at Greendale, but I’ve come to realize that it was unfair of me, even if I was always actually supportive.” He tries to parse that, decides his brain is melting, and gives up. 

“What do I do?”

“He loves you too, you know,” she says, even though he didn’t ask that. And then, in her lower voice, “Besides, it’s not my job to be giving relationship advice.”

“Like, three days ago you defended Shirley’s Sandwiches with nothing but a pillow,” points out Troy. “Which was super badass. My point is, you defy definition. Also, I thought you liked gossip?”

“Oh that’s nice,” says Shirley, very happily, and then she sighs into the phone. “But this isn’t gossip. We just thought you broke up when you left. That’s what Britta told me, anyway.”

“What?!”

“Well, we thought Clone Abed was programmed not to have romantic feelings for Clone Troy, and vice versa, and that’s why you were both so awkward a couple days ago,” Shirley explains. “Do you boys think you’re exempt from my complaint that everyone in this group used to make googly eyes at each other?” 

“No,” says Troy, even though he _did._ “But we weren’t dating.”

“Yes, you were,” says Shirley. “I know a relationship when I see it.”

“Oh,” says Troy faintly, and Shirley hangs up. 

Annie hovers in the apartment until Troy steps out of the bathroom. “Hey guys,” she says hesitantly, “Shirley organized a girl’s night, so um. You have the apartment to yourself.” She kind of waves her hand. “That’s okay, right? You didn’t want to do any roommate stuff tonight, right?”

“It’s fine,” says Abed, from his place on the couch. He doesn’t look up from the TV. “You’ve all mentioned how you all miss girl’s night.”

She brightens, and looks over to Troy, who nods in her direction. “Okay,” she replies, “because I know I haven’t seen you in a while…”

“Nah, it's cool,” says Troy. “What are you going to do?”

She giggles, already backing into her room to change. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

When the door slams, Abed looks up from the TV and at Troy. “I think they’re going to go to a bar and then do a sleepover. Andre’s looking after the kids this evening.” At Troy’s look of confusion, he adds, “Shirley moved back to Colorado in part because Andre promised to help take on the burden of childcare, even if they’re not together.”

“Oh,” says Troy. “No one told me that.” He moves to sit next to Abed on the couch, scooting so that they’re pressed up against each other, with one of Troy’s arms slung around the back of the couch and over Abed’s shoulders. “See, man, this is why I need you. I can’t keep track of this stuff.”

  
“Also,” says Abed, “Annie’s thinking about taking an investigative journalism job in New York, but she’s nervous about that.”

“Whoa. Are we supposed to know that?” 

Beyond them, there’s a noise that comes from the TV. Troy starts, then realizes Abed’s watching the first Indiana Jones movie.

“No. But if she asks me about it, I’ll tell her to do it.”

“Do what? Take the job?”

Abed turns back to the TV, but bobs his head. “I like to think that one day she’ll move to LA, but I think it’s unrealistic.”

Troy’s silent at that, watching the TV and thinking about it. “You’re going back to LA in a few days,” he says, as Indiana Jones runs through some ferns. It turns out, the jungle’s not really totally like that. LeVar had told him that, but it hadn’t surprised him so much as disappointed him; Abed always warned Troy that any movie like Indiana Jones might fall back on some racist stereotypes.

“Yeah,” says Abed. “This isn’t going to be another one of those situations like in our first year, is it?”

“Where I wanted to move in with you and you were worried about jumping the shark?”

Abed looks away from the screen again and nods.

“I was right, though,” says Troy softly, before he can help himself. “Living you was totally awesome.”

“It was good to have Annie there, too,” replies Abed, studying him. 

Troy can tell Abed’s considering doing the computer thing again, because Troy didn’t answer his question. Troy frowns, and adds, “I don’t know if we should move in together, though. So no, it’s not like our first year.” He sighs. “But I miss being your and Annie’s roommates. That was the _best._ It sucks that so many people moved away.”

“You can visit now,” points out Abed. “You have the money to.”

Troy swallows. “Annie’s not the only one thinking about taking a job,” he says, finally.

Abed cocks his head. “You didn’t tell me.”

  
  
“I didn’t want to freak you out,” Troy insists. “Especially because I realized I wanted to do acting because of all the films we did together. And I don’t want to jump the shark, either.”

  
  
“But you were right. We didn’t jump the shark. Living together was awesome.”

“Yeah, but, like, a week ago you wouldn’t talk to me because you were annoyed that I only sent postcards and left without you,” points out Troy. “I didn’t want to mention that LeVar made me send in a tape for V.O. stuff to some studios.” He scratches the back of his neck. “But I got the job offer before you came here.”

“I was more mad because I couldn’t figure you out anymore,” replies Abed. “You stopped being entirely predictable. But then I saw that you were trying really hard to maintain good rules of friendship and I wasn’t.” He doesn’t mention, _and the strength of my feelings towards you when you did things like wear my clothing stressed me out,_ but since he’s mostly got a handle on it, or at least has gotten used to it, he figures Troy doesn’t need to know about anything he can’t change.

“Oh,” says Troy.

“I didn’t do a good job of following those rules myself,” adds Abed. “I’m sorry about that.”

Troy knocks Abed’s knee with his own; Abed knocks back. “It’s cool,” he says, hoping Abed knows what he means.

“Cool cool cool,” agrees Abed. They sit in silence for a while as the Indiana Jones theme swells. Troy turns his attention to the screen, but still feels Abed’s gaze on him as the movie progresses. Sometimes, he knows, Abed likes to process; they’ve mentioned a lot of things in this conversation, so he sits and waits for Abed to think. 

“What job are you taking?” says Abed after a while.

“Oh,” says Troy. “I’m doing some voice acting for the new Kickpuncher video game in a couple weeks.”

“Hm,” replies Abed, snapping his fingers at Troy. “That’s why you sent me that text.”

“I thought maybe I could visit before I come back to Colorado when I’m done.”

“You’re thinking about bouncing between the two states?”

Troy shrugs. “Until we’re ready to move in together,” he says, so matter-of-fact, like _of course_ they’re going to move in together. 

Abed blinks at him for a long time, then smiles. “Cool,” he says, leaning into Troy’s touch. “Cool cool cool.”

Annie comes in the next day to her boys tangled on the couch, asleep. It’s surprising, if only because Abed gets up so early, but when she tiptoes towards the kitchen, Abed raises his head to look at her, awake after all. She gives him an awkward wave. “We watched a lot of movies last night,” he whispers, petting Troy’s head and making no move to get up.

Troy stirs at his movement, but relaxes into his touch and goes back to sleep. “Aw,” Annie says, happily.

“Are you making Special Drink and pancakes again this morning?”

  
  
“You know, Abed,” she sighs, “if we didn’t live together for a couple years, I would not believe your dedication to eating the same sugary foods every day.”

  
  
He does his finger gun and says, “Pew pew.”

She looks at him seriously for a moment, then deflates. “Yeah,” she says, “but only if you promise to pack today with me. We’re leaving tomorrow, right?”

He nods. “Oh, Troy’s coming with me back to LA.”

  
  
She cocks her head, and then ducks it. “What?” she exclaims, and pauses. Annie looks around, as if someone might be listening, and suddenly whispers in her _is there gossip?_ tone of voice, “did you guys talk about…” a small smile begins to spread on her face and she gestures, “you know!!”

Abed nods. “Yeah, his job in LA?”

“His what?”

He cocks _his_ head. “You don’t know about his job in LA?”

“Nooo,” she says, moving towards the kitchen.

“Then what were you talking about?”

  
  
“Nothing!” she sings in her butterflies-and-rainbow voice. “But if you two _ever_ have something to tell me, just know that I love you both.”

He frowns, but ultimately decides it’s not worth it. “Special Drink?” he prompts, as she begins to pour out milk, and at that, Troy stirs in his arms and echoes, “Special Drink,” into Abed’s shirt. “Make that one for Troy, when he wakes up,” Abed adds. He rubs some circles into Troy’s back, and Troy mumbles happily into Abed’s chest.

As Annie pours, her expression suddenly gets nervous again, like when she thinks she’s about to disappoint him. “You know, Abed, I know Jeff made that deal with the FBI and all, but…”

At this, Abed begins to untangle himself from Troy. “I think you should take the job,” he says. “We don’t need to know what happened that Halloween.”

  
  
“You do?” she says, smiling again. “Wait. How do you know about that?”

Abed raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t need to know,” she decides. “But what I was thinking was I could tell you?”

Troy shifts as Abed pries his arms off of his torso. “Troy,” he whispers, “this is nice, but I’m really hungry.”

  
  
“Huhmm,” says Troy. “Air conditioning?”

Annie giggles. “I forgot how cute he was in the mornings. Oh, you guys, I’m really going to miss this. Promise we can do this every single holiday? I love seeing everyone.”

  
  
“Pew pew,” says Abed, complete with finger gun, and then pauses, processing Troy’s gibberish while Annie busies herself in the kitchen, pouring out the last of the ingredients for pancakes. “I think Troy’s trying to say that the Air Conditioning Repair School probably knows, and we could ask them.”

She brightens at that, passing him his glass of Special Drink as he finally succeeds in letting Troy lie and strides over to the kitchen. She watches Troy turn and continue to snore into the couch. “So you think it’s okay?” She worries her lip, eyebrows furrowed. “I’m just...nervous. It’s hard to move.”

Abed nods. “Moving can be scary,” he agrees, then glances at Troy. “But maybe change is good. And I don’t think you’re going to be happy with the FBI forever. You kind of butt heads with administration sometimes.”

“You know, Abed...if he’s coming to LA with you—”

“He’s not moving in. We’re not going to jump the shark.”

“But if he did, you know that’s okay, right? Troy cares about you. He’s going to find a way to make things work.” At the sound of his name, Troy flops over on the couch and settles into an even deeper sleep. She looks down at her Special Drink. “I’m not sure why I made this for him if he’s still sleeping. I’m just going to put this in the fridge.”

“Is this like how the study group thought we were dating back in college?” asks Abed.

She jumps like she’s been shocked as she opens the fridge door. “No! Definitely not. Um.”

“So yes,” concludes Abed, frowning. “You know, it’s a lot easier for me if you tell the truth.”

“I just. Abed, do you, you know. Like Troy? In that way?”

Abed cocks his head. “Just because we both came out recently doesn’t mean we necessarily have to like each other.”

“Well,” hedges Annie, and sighs. “I know you hate when we all talk to Britta about you, but…” He makes a noise that means, _yes, why do you keep doing that,_ and she holds up her hands in defeat. “I know! But Britta’s got a point, Abed. You both are way closer than normal friends, and if he’s coming to LA with you…”

Abed’s frown deepens. “Annie,” he says, “you know I don’t do anything by half.”

“Half of what?” says Troy, finally stirring, and effectively finishing their conversation. He wanders up to the kitchen, and Annie pulls out the glass from the fridge to hand it to him. “Ooh,” he says, brightening, “Special Drink!”

Jeff drives all three of them to the airport. This time, Abed and Troy sit in the back and chat, while Annie excitedly talks about taking up her new job. “We could do another #AnniesMove,” Abed calls out from the back, and Annie giggles at that. “No, seriously. We need excuses to all see each other.”

“Abed,” Jeff says seriously, “I’m only going to say this once: I don’t have any other friends. I will keep you all in touch if it kills me.”

  
  
“Aw, Jeff,” says Annie, patting his cheek gently. “We love you, too.”

He tears up at that, and swipes at his eyes bitterly. “Shut up,” he says gruffly. “And Troy? We’ll miss you.”

  
  
“I’m not moving out,” Troy responds, confused. “I’m just doing a job for a couple weeks. I’ll be back.”

  
  
“Right,” Jeff and Annie say at the same time, and laugh. Troy decides Jeff and Annie being friends without any weird tension is the best, even if it’s at his sediment. (Because they’re burying him with mean things, right? He’s not sure. He decides to ask Abed later, since Abed will know.

Abed tells him later it's to his _detriment,_ but Troy’s thing is way cooler. They do their handshake and agree to keep using sediment.)

As they get out of the car and pull out their suitcases, Annie says, “Well, we’ll have plenty of time in between flights to talk to each other, but flying isn’t always great for Abed because of...you know, racism and things.” Troy stares at her for a long time, and she adds, “But you’re not going to do any of the LA stuff on Abed’s list without me, right?” and he smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling her into a hug. “But we’ll do it again with you, and better that time.” She laughs into his hug. After a moment, he says, really quietly, “You’re the best, you know that? I’m really going to miss living with you.”

She smiles at that.

Abed watches them hug for a while, talking softly between themselves, when he feels Jeff tap him. “Hey,” he says softly, looking at Annie and Troy as well. He’s slouching in that way that means he’s trying to be aloof when he really is full of emotion. “You know, it’s okay if you have feelings for Troy.” 

  
  
“Thanks,” says Abed. “I know that’s hard for you to say, since you’re emotionally constipated.”

“I’m not!” cries Jeff. And then, grumpily, “I’m getting better.”

Abed, who’d been about to point out Jeff denies the existence of his own feelings about as regularly as Abed does, nods and gives him two thumbs up. “But I don’t have feelings for Troy.” He pauses. “If I give you a speech now about all the things I like about Troy, I’ll realize I have feelings for him, won’t I? Classic sitcom trope.”

Jeff nods. “There you go, buddy,” he says.

“I could have used a Classic Winger Speech,” Abed responds disapprovingly.

Jeff claps him on the back. “Based on recent evidence, Abed, you’re pretty good at speeches yourself.”

Abed takes that as Jeff’s way of saying he loves him, and pulls Jeff into a hug because he knows Jeff wants one.

Abed doesn’t much like airplanes, so mostly he doesn’t talk and watches movies he downloaded on his laptop. Troy doesn’t mind; he gets an email from LeVar that tells him basically what Shirley said, with an added thing of _tell Abed_ and _please visit me when you come to LA._ Annie put comic books in his bag without telling him, because she still likes to spoil them without them knowing, so he spends the flight replying to LeVar and reading comics. 

It’s pretty great.

He does spend a fair amount of it thinking about all the nights they’ve spent sleeping together, and how he _knows_ he’s in love with Abed and always have been, and it makes his brain melt to think too hard about it, and his eyes water to think that it might freak Abed out, because mostly he doesn’t care if Abed doesn’t like him back, so long as they can be best friends and do best friends things for the rest of their life.

In the taxi back to Abed’s apartment, Troy says, “So you don’t have roommates?” and Abed shrugs.

“It’s a pretty small apartment, as far as these things go,” replies Abed, “but my job pays me enough to afford it, and I’m told I’m really hard to live with.”

  
  
“Annie and I thought you were fine,” Troy says, frowning, as they get out to the taxi and start climbing up the steps to Abed’s apartment.

“I wouldn’t use air conditioning,” explains Abed.

“Oh.”

  
  
“I’m okay with it now, though. But I still might not be able to use it because it turns out, it really cuts down on bills. I have to take public transport everywhere to afford the apartment, too, because I don’t have a car,” adds Abed as he unlocks the door and drags his own suitcase in, “But I think that’s okay.”

Troy surveys the apartment; Abed’s right, it’s small, but it’s decorated similarly to their old apartment, full of movie posters and a couch that looks like it’s going to fall apart, and a kitchen with only a couple dishes. It looks like _Abed’s apartment,_ in the way that it could only be his, and he’s so tired because of flying and so full of love because here’s his best friend, living his dream, that he says, “This is so cool. I love the movie posters, and the placement of the TV so you can see it from pretty much everywhere—” Abed makes a finger gun in his direction appreciatively “—and you, and— _whoops_.”

Abed freezes.

“Sorry,” says Troy, suddenly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I—” _wish my brain were further from my mouth, and my brain had its own brain, and—_

“You didn’t mean that, or you didn’t mean to say that?”

“Abed, I—”

Abed snaps his fingers. “This is why Annie and Jeff talked to me.” He peers curiously at Troy. “You’re never going to end up leaving, even if you intended to,” he says, frowning. “I should have guessed that. Honestly, we should have figured out we had feelings for each other way earlier. I was actually going to just repress it so we could stay best friends forever, because I would rather be your best friend than make anything awkward. But if you didn’t mean that, we can pretend I didn’t just confess to you and we can go back to being best friends.”

Troy blinks. “You like me?” he says softly, giddily, and Abed looks over to him and—mostly, he melts. Or his heart does this thing that feels like melting, even though it’s a metaphor, and he steps closer into Troy’s space.

“Yeah,” he says, “one could even say I love you. I should have figured it out when I started deciding we were in a fanfiction instead of a sitcom. Sitcoms don’t allow for this kind of arc; gay biracial relationships are way more acceptable in fanfic.” He cocks his head. “Maybe that’s why I decided we were in a fanfiction scenario and then decided I didn’t want to be.”

“Wait,” says Troy, looking confused, and soft, and Abed distantly realizes he loves him, the clinical narrator in his own head shutting down slightly at the realization. “Do you love me or not?” And then his eyes focus, and unfocus, and refocus as he realizes that Abed chose to see them in a fix-it scenario because he needed a reason to want to fix everything, even if he didn’t know he needed to fix things, and then he steps closer, understanding and heart full again. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

Abed nods, a sudden rush of nervousness overcoming him even though he and Troy have kissed before, all because Troy’s doing it for _real,_ and swallows, places his hands on Troy’s hips, ducks his head down, and meets Troy halfway.

As far as kisses go, Abed decides it’s about as good as really good television, and way better than anything they ever filmed.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you endlessly to ramón & jude for helping me with this thing; thanks to everyone i know for letting me ramble abt it. if you enjoyed this, yell at me in the comments or @figbian on tumblr or twitter :-)


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